You want polite? Order Beaujolais. This is not that. E. Guigal’s Côte-Rôtie La Landonne 2010 is the iron fist in a velvet cape—elegant enough to charm your dinner guests, feral enough to scare your cellar into alphabetical submission. It’s one of those bottles that makes time slow down, like the room leaned in to eavesdrop. If you’ve been waiting for a reason to swing big, here it is.

Smoke And Silk In The Glass

Night-shade purple poured over obsidian. The rim is just beginning to loosen from pitch to garnet, like embers finding air. First inhale and the hillside shows its teeth: blackcurrant and damson, then a lick of charcoal, iron shavings, cracked pepper, and that Côte-Rôtie perfume—violet and smoked pancetta doing a slow dance. Black olive tapenade, hoisin, espresso crema, a cool streak of graphite… it’s a midnight pantry raid in a chef’s kitchen after service. Nothing shrill. Everything layered. The nose alone has a plot arc.

Where Iron Kisses Velvet

On the attack, it steps softly—then the tannins arrive like well-dressed bouncers: broad-shouldered, suede-grained, impeccably polite while they move you exactly where they want you. The fruit is jet-black and plush—ripe blackberry, kirsch in a leather glove—braided with cocoa nib, cured meat, and fennel seed. Acidity is that clean, mineral line you only get from steep northern terraces; it threads the richness and pulls the whole thing taut. The mid-palate turns savory—beef drippings over rosemary, black tea, tapenade—before the finish unspools for a full minute of pepper, violets, and warm stone. It’s ballerina balance inside a powerlifter’s frame. If you’re chasing “silky,” this is silk with backbone.

The Slope That Doesn’t Forgive

La Landonne isn’t a vineyard; it’s a thesis on consequence. Cut into the Côte Brune’s dark schists and iron-streaked clays, the terraces are so steep they make goats reconsider life choices. Guigal doesn’t coax this site so much as duel with it: handwork on stone stairs that crumble if you blink; selection so severe the vines probably hold therapy circles. The cuvée has always been the most brooding of the “La-Las”—100% Syrah, no prettying up with Viognier, raised in new oak long enough to knit muscle to muscle. In 2010, the Northern Rhône had the kind of slow, classical season that makes growers speak in church voices. La Landonne took that cool precision and built armor from it.

How To Uncage The Beast

Don’t treat this like a lab specimen; treat it like a prized tomahawk steak. Two to four hours in a wide decanter will bring the meat and violets into focus without stripping the mystery. Serve at 60–63°F (16–17°C) in the largest Burgundy bowl you own; yes, I said Burgundy bowl—let the aromatics strut. Food? Go big but not stupid: dry-aged ribeye with a peppercorn crust; lamb shoulder braised with black olives and rosemary; five-spice duck with lacquered skin; shiitake risotto finished with beef jus and a black-pepper rain. Salt, fat, char, umami—give the wine sparring partners, not bystanders.

Why Future You Will Thank Present You

This is blue-chip Côte-Rôtie: microscopic terraces, obsessive élevage, and a vintage that collectors whisper about like a well-kept vice. La Landonne has a reputation for outliving your patience—think decades, plural—trading primary swagger for tertiary seduction: leather, truffle, cold hearth, and the kind of savory sweetness that makes sommeliers go silent. Secondary market? The “La-Las” are allocation catnip, and 2010 sits near the top of that pyramid. If you’re building a cellar to impress your grandchildren—or to bankroll a questionable sports car—this is the kind of bottle that appreciates while you procrastinate opening it.

Last Call Before The Chorus

Look, mortals: plenty of wines are delicious. Few are inevitable. La Landonne 2010 feels inevitable—like someone rewrote the rules of Syrah on a slab of granite and dared you not to read them. Pass now and you’ll spend the next decade chasing it at a premium, shaking your head, telling yourself you didn’t really want the bull. You do. Trust me; I invented the party.