Soils: Mica-schist and schistous soils rich in iron oxides
Production: Approximately 2,500 bottles in the best vintages
Harvest: Hand harvested
Vinification: Destemmed and gravity fed into stainless-steel vats for gentle extraction
Malolactic fermentation: In barriques
Barrel aging: 6 months, with approximately 20% new oak
Foudre aging: 12 months in 25 hL foudres (neutral)
Final élevage: 3 months in stainless steel
Total aging: Approximately 21 months

95-97+ points Jeb Dunnuck
Based on 100% Syrah from a Grand Cru terroir in the heart of this great appellation and raised in new and used barrels, the 2023 Côte Rôtie La Landonne sports a deep purple hue as well as cassis and mulberry fruits intermixed with scorched earth, pepper, violets, and blood orange. It's medium to full-bodied, has a pure, seamless mouthfeel, brilliant tannins, integrated acidity, and a great, great finish. It's very much in the clean, straight, flawlessly balanced style of this estate today.

97 points Wine Advocate
With a ripe profile, the 2023 Côte-Rôtie La Landonne unfurls from the glass with a complex, delicate and racy bouquet of tapenade, spices, dark berries and pepper. Medium- to full-bodied, structured and concentrated, it’s built around a lively, tensile core of fruit framed by filigreed, sweet tannins that lead to a long, beautifully spicy and ethereal finish. Combining power and precision, it marries the telluric force of the terroir with precise tannins and a silky mouthfeel that has become a hallmark of Delas’s style in recent years.

Maison Delas, owned by Champagne Deutz and part of the Louis Roederer group, has recently inaugurated a new winery designed to enhance precision at every stage of the winemaking process. Under the direction of Jacques Desvauges, this investment reflects a clear ambition to refine both technical control and stylistic clarity. As readers may recall, Delas farms holdings on several of the Northern Rhône’s most distinguished sites, providing a strong foundation for this renewed focus.

In recent years, the house has moved toward a less demonstrative style, seeking greater elegance and definition than in the past. This evolution is expressed through a more nuanced approach to élevage, including increased use of Burgundy barrels and larger-format vessels, alongside a more selective choice of coopers—among them Taransaud, Chassin, Seguin Moreau, Marsannay and François Frères. The vineyards achieved organic certification in 2024, further underscoring this shift toward precision and balance. Winemaking remains broadly traditional, with a certain Bordeaux-inspired rigor that can render the wines somewhat reserved in youth, though this impression softens with a few years in bottle.

The 2023 vintage marks a clear success. The wines show greater precision and a more articulate expression of terroir than the 2022s, which at times seemed more shaped by the conditions of the year itself. The 2024 whites are likewise accomplished, defined by their freshness, elegance, and composure. Taken together, these recent vintages illustrate the extent of the progress achieved here—not through any single, dramatic change but rather through the accumulation of carefully considered adjustments. And it's those incremental refinements that, in the end, make all the difference.