Bernard Levet Cote-Rotie La Chavaroche / La Peroline 2018

This is Bernard Levet's flagship — the wine that best captures the family's fiercely traditional, old-school approach to Côte-Rôtie. Sold as "La Chavaroche" in export markets and "La Péroline" domestically in France (the same wine under two names), it comes from the upper section of La Chavaroche, a steep 1.2-hectare parcel of Syrah averaging forty years of age on the Côte Brune, planted on poor brown soils threaded with mica schist and oxidized iron that give the wine its signature marked minerality. The cuvée is named for Agnès Levet's grandmother, a quiet tribute from the daughter who has run the domaine's vineyard and cellar work since 2004 and been widely credited with sharpening the estate's quality further still. True to Levet's uncompromising style, the wine is fermented using all of its stems — full whole-cluster vinification, a hallmark of the house — and matured mostly in used demi-muids, so what oak influence there is shows up in texture rather than flavour.

The result is Côte-Rôtie in its most classic, unvarnished form: fresh, intense dark fruit — dark cherry, blueberry, blackberry — meets smoke, spice, and a floral lift that gives it real ethereal complexity alongside its power.