The 2020 Cuvée Tardive from Alain Coudert comes in listed at a full point higher in octane than the regular bottling of Clos de la Roilette this year (fourteen versus thirteen percent), but shares the same precision and sappiness. The wine is quite a bit more structured out of the blocks than the regular Clos, offering up a deep and primary nose of black cherries, sweet dark berries, a touch of dark chocolate, a beautiful base of Clos de la Roilette soil tones, a bit of roasted pigeon, woodsmoke and a hint of nutskin in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, sappy and full, with a rock solid core of fruit, a nice chassis of ripe tannin and a long, nascently complex and vibrant finish. This wine is loaded with ripe fruit, but nicely harnessed to its underlying mineral drive and buried tannin. This is a more powerful example of the vintage, as these eighty year-old vines show more of the drought character of some wines from the vintage, and therefore, will need some time to blossom.

Wafting from the glass with aromas of raspberries, plums, rose petals and sweet spices, the 2020 Fleurie is medium to full-bodied, ample and layered, with a fleshy core of fruit, fine tannins and succulent acids, concluding with a perfumed finish. After the ethereal, classically proportioned 2019, the 2020 represents a return to the richer register that followers of this estate will remember from recent vintages, such as 2018, 2017 and 2015.

Pretty purple not exaggerated. A very classic nose. An evident sweetness to the fruit, still all red rather than anything darker, more strawberry in style with just a tickle of white pepper.