FLOAT 100 · Wine · No. 96
E. Guigal Cote-Rotie La Landonne 2016
A grandfather losing his sight pieced together an abandoned 45-degree slope from more than a dozen neighbors, planted it the month his grandson was born, and four decades later it gave the darkest, most tannic of Guigal's 2016 single-vineyard wines.
- Maker
- E. Guigal
- By price in wine
- 74 of 100
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Create a free account- Producer
- E. Guigal, Ampuis, Northern Rhone
- Appellation
- Cote-Rotie, from the La Landonne lieu-dit on the Cote Brune
- Grape
- 100% Syrah, fermented as whole clusters
- Guigal's holding
- About 2.3 hectares (first assembled as 1.8 ha)
- Planted
- January 1975, the month Philippe Guigal was born
- First vintage
- 1978
- Aging (2016)
- 42 months in new oak
- Alcohol
- 13.5%
- Wine Advocate
- 99 points (May 2021)
A slope nobody wanted
La Landonne is a steep hillside on the northern edge of Ampuis, the wine town of Cote-Rotie in France's Northern Rhone. Its earliest known mention is in a wine atlas printed in 1943, and Etienne Guigal remembered vines there in his youth. But two world wars, a depression and the long aftermath of phylloxera emptied Cote-Rotie of workers; by the end of the Second World War the vines on La Landonne were gone. In 1965 only 59 hectares were harvested in the whole appellation.
Etienne Guigal had started working Cote-Rotie's vineyards at 14 in 1924, rose to cellar master at another house, and founded his own business in 1946. By 1961 his eyesight was failing and his 17-year-old son Marcel had to take charge of the winery. With more free time, Etienne visited friends around Ampuis and quietly bought their slivers of the abandoned Landonne slope. One account says he persuaded 15 friends to sell, building a 1.8-hectare holding; another account credits Marcel with assembling it over ten years from 17 growers. Guigal owns about 2.3 hectares today.
When Marcel and his wife Bernadette learned they were expecting a child, the family decided to replant the slope in his honor. Philippe Guigal was born in January 1975, and La Landonne was planted that same month after three decades without vines. The first vintage was made in 1978. Philippe grew up being told by his grandfather that La Landonne was his vineyard.
The La-Las and the critic
La Landonne was the second of Guigal's three single-vineyard Cote-Roties, known together as the La-Las: La Mouline, first made in 1966, La Landonne in 1978, and La Turque in 1985. La Landonne is the only one of the three that is a registered lieu-dit, the only one made entirely from Syrah, and the only one that is not a monopole. Other growers also bottle wine from the slope, and Guigal designed its own unusual method partly to set its version apart.
Marcel built square stainless steel tanks filled to the brim with whole clusters, with a second vat nested on top and a column that continuously pumps the juice over the grapes for about four weeks. The wine then spends years in new barrels from Guigal's own cooperage at the Chateau d'Ampuis. Robert Parker championed the La-Las, and all three have received 100-point scores from him. Philippe recalls Parker admitting that his own taste ran to finesse, but that he scored La Landonne highest because it was the most reliable of the three for cellaring.
Marcel chose a label that nods to antiquity: an image from a Roman mosaic excavated in neighboring Saint-Romain-en-Gal, showing the month of September and a crush pad, framed by Doric columns, with the vintage written in Roman numerals. The same label is still used.
2016: a late start, a classic finish
The 2016 season began cool and rainy, with hail and mildew threatening and flowering very late. Fine weather through August and September rescued it, and Cote-Rotie was harvested between late September and mid-October. La Landonne is the last of Guigal's sites to ripen; the family picks it about ten days after La Mouline. Philippe Guigal called 2016 a classic vintage for the La-Las, with 25 years or more of aging potential.
Philippe prefers to exaggerate the character of each year rather than fight it, extracting more in powerful vintages and less in delicate ones. The 2016 is 100% Syrah from vines with an average age of 35 years at the time, aged 42 months in new oak, at 13.5% alcohol.
Wine Advocate scored it 99 in May 2021, calling it the darkest, most concentrated and tannic of the 2016 La-Las, with smoked meat, scorched coffee, cassis, olives and herbs, and a life of 20 to 25 years ahead. Jeb Dunnuck gave it 97, Wine Spectator 97 and Decanter 96.
How to know it
The vineyard faces southeast on a 45-degree slope between 175 and 275 meters, on iron-rich schist that resists erosion so well that much of it needs no terraces. Pickers start at the bottom and climb, loading grapes onto a pulley or sled system that hauls them up the hill. The wine is known for brawny power and dark fruit, the opposite of La Mouline's elegance; Philippe has joked that it is the most Pauillac of all Cote-Roties.
The bottle carries the Roman-mosaic label and the vintage in Roman numerals. Guigal's current technical sheet gives 40 months in new oak and an average vine age of 50 years, while the 2016 sheet gave 42 months and 35 years, so the details vary by vintage and by document.
On the market
The 2016 sells by the single bottle through U.S. merchants. In October 2026 one listed a 750ml bottle at $415.00. Critics have noted that old bottles from traditional Cote-Rotie growers now often sell for more than the La-Las, but the Guigal wines brought the attention that lifted prices across the appellation, which had 308 hectares planted by 2017.
The numbers
- Guigal's holding
- About 2.3 ha
- Grape
- 100% Syrah
- Average yield
- 2.59 tons per acre (2016 sheet); 35 hl/ha (current sheet)
- Aging
- 42 months in new oak (2016)
- Wine Advocate
- 99
- Jeb Dunnuck
- 97
- Wine Spectator
- 97
- Decanter
- 96
Timeline
Etienne Guigal, age 14, starts working in Cote-Rotie's vineyards.
La Landonne appears in a printed wine atlas, its earliest known mention.
Etienne Guigal founds his own wine business in Ampuis.
With Etienne's eyesight failing, 17-year-old Marcel Guigal takes charge.
Only 59 hectares of Cote-Rotie are harvested.
Guigal makes its first single-vineyard wine, La Mouline.
Philippe Guigal is born and La Landonne is replanted after three decades without vines.
The first vintage of La Landonne.
The third La-La, La Turque, makes its debut.
A cool, rainy spring and late flowering give way to a fine late summer; harvest runs into mid-October.
Wine Advocate scores the 2016 La Landonne 99.
A U.S. merchant lists a single bottle of the 2016 at $415.00.
The world in 2016
British voters choose to leave the European Union.
NASA's Juno spacecraft enters orbit around Jupiter.
Pokemon Go is released and becomes a global craze.
A truck attack in Nice on Bastille Day kills 86 people.
The Summer Olympics open in Rio de Janeiro, the first held in South America.
Donald Trump is elected the 45th president of the United States.
Price record
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, E. Guigal Cote-Rotie La Landonne 2016 is number 74 of 100 in the wine entries of the FLOAT 100. 12 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (96 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- La Landonne was replanted the same month Philippe Guigal was born, and his grandfather told him it was his vineyard.
- The slope is so steep, 45 degrees, that pickers start at the bottom and work their way up.
- The label shows a Roman mosaic of the month of September, and the vintage is written in Roman numerals.
- In 1945 a kilo of Cote-Rotie grapes earned less than half the price of a kilo of apricots.
- Guigal makes its own barrels at the Chateau d'Ampuis.
- Robert Parker reportedly preferred elegant wines but rated La Landonne highest for its reliability in the cellar.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026