Domaine Barge Cote Rotie Les Cotes 2019

94 Points John Gillman As readers may recall, Julien Barge lost most of the Côte Brune vines that he had been farming, as they were owned by a cousin who decided to go in another direction with the fruit from this parcel, so Julien no longer had sufficient surface area here to continue to make his Côte Brune bottling. Consequently, he decided to blend his small parcel in Côte Blonde, as well as additional fruit from Combard, Lancement, Baleyat and Boucharey to make his new les Côtes bottling. Much of this fruit had previously gone into his Cuvée du Plessy bottling. 2018 was the first vintage for this new blended cuvée, which was excellent, and the 2019 is another stellar young Côte-Rôtie. The wine comes in at the same fourteen percent as the Coeur de Combard and delivers a refined, classic nose of raspberries, pepper, roasted game, hazelnut, a beautifully complex base of soil, woodsmoke, a touch of cedar and a lovely topnote of spices. On the palate the wine is full-bodied, soil-driven