Patrick Jasmin, Côte-Rôtie (Rhône Valley, France) 2016

 Some of what follows about this wine is speculative, but please bear with me, as the wine is so good that a measure of uncertainty is merited.  I’ve never tasted a “prestige” bottling of Côte Rôtie from Jasmin, and thus didn’t understand what was going on when the “regular” bottling started showing the proprietary name “La Giroflarie” not long ago.  It seems that the regular wine needed that name to distinguish it from this wine when Jasmin evidently began releasing a higher-end bottling from his favorite barrels, a higher percentage of which are new for this wine.  This looked like a finished wine when I tasted it in April of 2019, as it was wearing a capsule (but not a label).  I’m assuming the name “Oléa” based on a tasting note of the 2015 by northern Rhône expert John Livingstone-Learmonth, whom I respect highly, as my sensory evaluation of the 2016 runs closely parallel to his note on the 2015.  As for the price, well, my $120 is just a wild-ass guess.  Regarding the wine itself, no guesswork is required, as it is a big bruiser with very impressive concentration and lots of spicy wood to match, with very intense perfume including floral notes, crushed black raspberries and cherries and faint suggestions of cocoa powder and campfire embers.  Huge as it is, it remains internally balanced and harmonious.  Patrick Jasmin resembles a rugby player…and a rather rough one at that, and consequently I’ve always thought it was a bit mysterious that his rendering of Côte-Rôtie was so sleek and restrained.  With the discovery of this wine, that mystery has evaporated, but only to be replaced by the mystery of how one acquires a bottle of “Oléa.”   I’ll follow up once I’ve learned the answer to that question, at which time my credit cards will likely be maxed out.