Top 200 wines in 2024, #6, 98 points

Robert Jasmin Cote Rotie 1990

Many wine lovers have a single, memorable 'epiphanous' experience, which often explains why they become aficionados. But unforgettable experiences do not cease at the beginning of the pilgrimage, and some other bottles you encounter along the way can also leave an indelible imprint. Indeed, one or two might leave such a profound impression that you can't stop thinking about them and you obsess about seeking them out. Almost invariably these are bottles that are extraordinarily difficult to track down. Around late 2011, MEK to her credit, sourced some mature bottles of Robert Jasmin Cote Rotie from 1980 to 1990. For me these came to define the essence of unadulterated mature Cote Rotie. It was notable that the so-called off vintages, like 1980 and 1984, performed conspicuously well, but the 1990 stood out above the rest. It was the one which made the ground shift beneath your feet. Over subsequent years it became my nominated desert island wine, but I resigned myself to the possibility of never crossing paths with one ever again. So it was with great excitement that Jonathan P listed a magnum of the Jasmin 1990 for the wine-pages Northern Rhone 'wimps' lunch in the summer of 2023. Sadly, in a bitter twist of fate, it was somewhat corked - but it still tasted magnificent I tried to convince myself - and I stood there crestfallen, forlornly clutching this magnum while others, oblivious to my grief, gaily moved on. 

However, soon after, I had managed to track down two bottles from Berry Brothers at considerable expense, a case of the heart over-ruling the head; and in mid-February 2024 I finally had the chance to open one of them, with roast beef on the bone. To my relief it was on top form.  The memories came flooding back with this untainted bottle. It had a captivating nose of smoky November bonfire and embers, with raw smoked cured bacon, Mediterranean olives, subtle East African cocoa notes, mineral slate notes encapsulated in the descriptor <<wolframite>>, as we did more than a decade ago, when we were drinking these and 1990s vintages of Noel Verset Cornas. But what made the Jasmin '90 that little extra bit special  - both in the early teens and in 2024 - was its ethereal and beguiling weightlessness, a sign of true greatness and the other end of the spectrum to the full-bore assault on the olfactory senses of Guigal La-Las. Much as I loved our gladiatorial encounter with mature La-Las at a lunch in June 2023, and much as I admire the compelling, dazzling, flamboyance of great vintages of full-fledged Jamet, mature Robert Jasmin, with the 1990 vintage at the apotheosis, trumps them all and is the pinnacle of Cote Rotie in my book….six stars?