People often ask me what my favorite wine is. I hate to be a killjoy, but I have to say, it depends. I’ll be drawn to a type of wine because of what I’m eating, what time of day it is, where I am. Sometimes I’ll get on a wine jag because I saw somebody pour it on TV.

But I can name my favorite wine drinking experience, and which wine it involved: a Côte Rôtie. Unfortunately, that answer is no crowd pleaser, either, since Côte Rôtie is generally obscure, hard to find, and priced out of most people’s everyday drinking budget.

Before you conclude I’m a complete bore and decide never to invite me to a dinner party, click here for the story, plus what, pray tell, is a Côte Rôtie:

Côte Rôtie is a red wine from the Rhône River valley in France. It’s made from syrah, mostly (French wine law allows for a tiny bit of viognier in the blend, but only if it is grown in the same vineyard, picked, and fermented with the syrah). But unlike the plush, fruity syrahs coming out of Australia for example, Côte Rôtie is a medium-bodied, highly structured wine. It’s got plenty of cherry and black fruit flavors, but also earth and often a tell-tale note of grilled meat. (Côte Rôtie means “roasted slope” in French, for the region’s sun-baked hillsides, but I like to think it refers also to these smoky flavors.) Harvested by hand from precariously planted, but lovingly tended vines that look like they’re half-hanging off the near-cliffs, the best of Côte Rôtie is artisanal, precious, and pricey. Some say it’s back on the wine world’s radar mostly because of wine critic Robert Parker’s affection for the “La La’s,” a trio of wines made by Etienne Guigal from three very special vineyards, all of them with names starting with la.

I myself identify as a Côte-Rôtie-tail rider, because on the rare occasion I get to drink the stuff, usually someone else is paying. My favorite wine drinking experience is no exception. I was traveling through Provence a few years ago, and during our pause in Nice we ate at Chanticleer, the restaurant in the wonderful old belle-epoque Hotel Negresco. I ordered (and my friend Diana paid for) a bottle of 1990 Guigal “La Landonne,” perhaps the most prestigious of the La La’s.

It was a revelation. Most of all I remember the layers: waves of sensory experiences washed over my tongue, and all the different textures, flavors, and intensities were so beautifully differentiated. Each sip was like biting into a bonbon, not because the wine was sweet, but because drinking it was like sinking your teeth into the hard chocolate, then hitting some ganache, then puncturing a juicy red cherry inside. The wine was concentrated, sure, but mostly I remember it was perfectly balanced. I remember a little scorched earth. And I recall that the magical La Landonne, which I ate with a plate of pigeon breast, conspired with the chef transform that humble bird into something noble. I swear everyone at the table thought it was filet mignon or tender slices of roasted lamb.

During a recent blind tasting of northern Rhônes I attended, the group favorite was Michel and Stephane Ogier’s Côte Rôtie from the 2004 vintage, which costs $73. “Archetypal Rhône,” said one taster. “I loved the pepper,” said another. I thought it had a really engaging nose, full of cherry and violet aromas, and although my notes called its mouthfeel “vivid,” I didn’t rate it as highly as my most memorable drink of the evening, a Guigal. But not a La La. It turned out to be a lowly Crozes Hermitage (from the appellation just to the south of Côte Rôtie, also made of syrah), but I was attracted by its dark garnet color, the cherry and chocolate on the nose, its clean mouthfeel. “It’s all happens on the finish,” I wrote. “Loads of cherry, ripe raspberry, long. This wine put on weight, and the fruit flavors got darker.”

The group thought it was too sweet, but what the hell — it retails for only $21. It’d can be the next northern Rhône I’ll buy if I have to pay.