Levet Côte-Rôtie 'Amethyste' 2017

It seems hard to believe that by the 1960s most of Côte-Rôtie lay abandoned: with no one willing to do back-breaking work on the terraces, winemakers turned to farming apricots beneath the slopes. A new generation arrived in the early 1970s and names such as Guigal found success taking a modern approach. The likes of Clape, Jamet, and Levet had to wait longer for drinkers to rediscover the beauty of their old school northern Rhône wines.

At the helm since 2004, Agnès Levet has taken her parents’ estate to the next level. She meticulously tends 3.5ha of Sérine – a low-yielding, local clone of Syrah – dispersed between six old-vine lieux-dits within Côte-Rôtie, including the highly revered vineyards ‘La Chavaroche’, ‘La Landonne’, and ‘La Moulin’. These steep, organically farmed terraces have been worked and harvested manually since the Levets first acquired them in the 1930s.

In a cellar in Ampuis, whole-cluster fermentation takes place in tank using native yeasts, before ageing in large oak casks and smaller barrels for three years. Wines are bottled with minimal fining and without filtration. This delicate approach results in enticing floral aromatics, mineral-accented black fruit, and peppery spice built around a structure for long ageing.

From ‘La Chavaroche’, ‘Péroline’ is dark and brooding, taking on complex smoke and meat nuances with time in bottle. ‘Maestria’ – sourced from ‘La Landonne’ – combines high-toned fruit and elegant floral notes with a wild, spicy finish. A blend of lieux-dits, 'Amethyste' is the most open and accessible of Levet’s cuvées in youth, offering ripe autumnal fruit layered with notes of dried herbs and roasted coffee.

With an enthusiastic following among sommeliers and lovers of classically styled Côte-Rôtie, Levet’s wines are never easy to find, especially with maturity.