2011 Côte-Rôtie Château d'Ampuis Guigal

Open, voluptuous and ready to go (especially when compared to the 2010), the 2011 Cote Rotie Chateau d'Ampuis has stellar notes of cassis, vanilla bean, toasted spice and dried flowers to go with a full-bodied, sexy, seamless profile on the palate. Drink this beauty while you wait on your 2009s and 2010s.

Vivid ruby. Spicy red fruits, incense, violet and botanical herbs on the flamboyantly perfumed nose. Vibrant, mineral-tinged black raspberry and bitter cherry flavors show impressive depth and vivacity and a seamless texture. Juicy, precise and appealingly sweet on the youthfully tannic, incisive finish, with the berry and floral notes echoing. The blend of fruit intensity and tension here is quite suave. - Josh Raynolds

The essence of the appellation smokes out from the glass, offering hints of cracked pepper, bacon, clove and leather. It's reasonably full-bodied for Côte Rôtie, with feral, smoked-meat flavors, ample spice and plenty of the concentrated plummy fruit. Tannins are silky, making this approachable now, but likely capable of aging well for at least 10-15 years.

A selection from vineyards surrounding the LaLas (La Mouline, La Landonne and La Turque), this is surprisingly restrained given its four week maceration and 38 months in new barrels. The time in wood has brought a warm caramel richness to the berry fruit; it also smoothed out the tannins, which stretch through the wine like tense muscles, long and lean. The wine is giving enough to drink with pleasure right now, and sure to last well for a decade.

Very focused, with a lovely beam of lightly steeped red currant, bitter cherry and plum fruit flavors that glides atop singed cedar, black tea and dried star anise notes. The long finish is very finegrained. A gorgeous wine. Best from 2016 through 2027. -J.M.