E. Guigal
La Turque
Cote Rotie 2010

The producer

The Guigal name is synonymous with Cote Rotie, and Etienne Guigal’s arrival in the appellation in 1946, was one of the main drivers behind the whole of the Cote Rotie appellation’s subsequent success. Today Guigal produces nearly ten million bottles of wine a year along the length of the Rhone Valley. In Cote Rotie they own a stunning 40 hectares out of the appellation’s 323 hectares – more than 12% of the whole – and these holdings are in prime parts of the various vineyards that make Cote Rotie so complex.

Guigal originally brought themselves, and the appellation, to the world’s attention with three single vineyard wines known now as the “La-Las” – La Landonne, La Mouline and La Turque – wines aged for 42 months in new oak barriques. The wines took on statuesque personalities, with the ability to age for decades, and fame and fortune to match.

The wine

One of Guigal’s iconic single vineyard flagship wines, La Turque was the last addition, first produced in 1985. Always composed of around 93% Syrah and 7% Viognier, fruit for La Turque is sourced from a 1 hectare very steep vineyard plot of around 30-year-old vines on the Cote Brune side of the Cote Rotie, not far from where the La Landonne plot is. After fermentation and around four weeks of maceration, the finished wine spends 42 months ageing in new French oak barrels.

La Turque is characterised by having the ruggedness and vigour of the Cote Brune combined with the grace and subtlety of the Cote Blonde, and as such it is fuller and more structured than La Mouline but doesn’t quite have the power of La Landonne. Only 400 cases are produced annually and this, along with the other single vineyard flagships, regularly receive high scores from the world’s leading wine critics.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.