Guigal’s crown jewels: Tasting the 2015 ‘La Las’

Guigal is one of the Rhône Valley’s biggest and best negociant houses. Based in Ampuis at the heart of Côte-Rôtie, it owns vineyards in some of the finest terroirs of this mythical appellation.

La Mouline, La Turque and La Landonne, known collectively as the ‘La Las’, are the three jewels in Guigal’s crown.

La Turque is from the middle section of Côte-Brune, while La Mouline is from the heart of Côte-Blonde, and the parcel of La Landonne was planted in 1975 to celebrate the birth of Philippe Guigal, who now manages the estate.

Scroll down for Matt Walls’ Guigal 2015 ‘La Las’ tasting notes and scores

The 2015 vintage: Up there with the best

The 2015 vintage in the Northern Rhône was one of those rare years that was generous in both quality and quantity, a hot vintage that resulted in concentrated wines, but crucially they have great freshness, particularly in Côte-Rôtie.

Will 2015 be the equal of 1999, 1990 or 1978? Almost certainly, but time will tell.

One thing that makes Guigal’s La Las wines unique is their élévage. They spend around 40 months in 100% new oak barriques.

To my knowledge, there is no other local producer that ages its wines in barrel for so long before release. But the more important point here is the exclusive use of new oak coupled with the small size of barrel.

Côte-Rôtie wines typically spend 12 to 18 months in oak. There is a gradual move away from new oak, with 20% to 30% more typical, towards larger barrels such as demi-muids.

The benefits of ageing in oak are well-known, particularly for reductive varieties such as Syrah where it can aid the softening and melding of tannins through natural micro-oxygenation, as well as introduce further oak tannins and increase aromatic complexity.

In these ways the wines tasted here do benefit. But such a robust oak regime also has its drawbacks, which I feel are evident to a degree in these finished wines.

Firstly, it can give a strongly oaky character to the aromatic profile, and although this will integrate by the time the wine is mature, it risks occluding some of the more subtle natural perfumes of these extraordinary sites.

The more important issue is that such intense use of oak can give a blocky, foursquare character to the wines, not to mention a slightly drying touch to the palate, and this is unlikely to relax to the same extent.

After listening to customers, Guigal recently reduced the use of new oak in its St-Joseph blanc ‘Le Lieu Dit’ from 100% new oak barriques, to 50% new and 50% second-use oak. Perhaps this shows a softer stance in general – I hope it does.

There is no question of the quality of the vineyard sites or the care with which these wines are made – by any standards they are excellent wines.

But I can’t help thinking that if these exotic birds were released from their wooden cages, they could fly even higher.

See Matt Walls’ Guigal 2015 La Las tasting notes and scores

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