Rhône Valley

The Rhône Valley's winemaking history stretches back to the ancient Greeks, who planted vines around Massalia (modern Marseille) around 600 BC. The Romans expanded viticulture northward along the river corridor, and by the medieval period the wines of the Rhône were among the most prized in Europe. Pope Clement V moved the papal court to Avignon in 1309, and the wines of the surrounding hills — what would become Châteauneuf-du-Pape, literally 'the Pope's new castle' — gained an international reputation that endures to this day.

The Northern Rhône's reputation was built on different foundations. Hermitage, the great granite hill above Tain-l'Hermitage, was producing wines that commanded prices comparable to the finest Bordeaux as early as the eighteenth century. English wine merchants prized 'Hermitage' as a blending component to add backbone to lighter clarets — a practice that continued, not always openly, well into the nineteenth century. The hill's reputation for producing wines of extraordinary longevity and complexity has never really dimmed.

Côte-Rôtie — the 'roasted slope' — is the northernmost and, many argue, the most elegant appellation of the Northern Rhône. Its two historic sectors, the Côte Brune and the Côte Blonde, produce wines of contrasting character: the Brune, with its iron-rich soils, gives structure and dark fruit; the Blonde, on lighter, sandier ground, produces wines of greater perfume and finesse. A small addition of Viognier — up to 20% is permitted — is used by some producers to add aromatic lift to the blend.

Hermitage is the Northern Rhône's most powerful statement. The hill rises steeply above the town of Tain, its south-facing granite terraces capturing maximum sun in a climate that is marginal enough to make every degree count. The great red Hermitages — from Chapoutier, Jean-Louis Chave, Paul Jaboulet Aîné — are among the longest-lived wines in France, capable of developing for thirty years or more. Cornas, the most rustic and age-demanding of the northern appellations, produces pure Syrah of almost savage intensity from its amphitheatre of granite above the village.

Châteauneuf-du-Pape permits up to eighteen grape varieties in its blends — a legacy of the appellation's complex soils and the diversity of styles its growers have always sought to express. In practice, most estates build their wines around Grenache, adding Syrah for colour and structure, Mourvèdre for spice and longevity, and Cinsault for freshness. The result, at its best, is a wine of extraordinary aromatic complexity: garrigue, leather, dark cherry, dried herbs, and a warmth that speaks unmistakably of the southern sun.

The producers redefining the Southern Rhône today are working in two directions simultaneously. Château Rayas, the legendary estate of the Reynaud family, has always made Châteauneuf from 100% Grenache on sandy soils — the antithesis of the powerful, structured style — producing wines of haunting delicacy that age magnificently. Château Beaucastel, by contrast, uses all eighteen permitted varieties and ages its flagship wine in large oak foudres, producing a wine of extraordinary complexity and one of the appellation's longest track records. Between these poles, a new generation of vignerons is exploring single-vineyard wines, organic and biodynamic farming, and a return to the indigenous varieties that were nearly lost in the twentieth century.

In the Northern Rhône, Thierry Allemand in Cornas has become one of the most sought-after names in French wine — a former apprentice of the legendary Robert Michel, farming tiny parcels of old-vine Syrah with minimal intervention and producing wines of extraordinary purity and depth. Auguste Clape, also in Cornas, represents the old guard at its finest: traditional winemaking, long macerations, large old oak, and wines that need a decade to begin showing their true character. Jean-Louis Chave in Hermitage is the benchmark for the appellation's whites as well as its reds, blending multiple parcels on the hill into a wine of seamless complexity.

M. Chapoutier, the Tain-l'Hermitage négociant that converted entirely to biodynamic farming in 1990, occupies a unique position in the valley: a large house with the ambition and the vineyard holdings to produce single-parcel wines — Le Pavillon, L'Ermite, De l'Orée — that rank among the Northern Rhône's finest. In the south, Domaine du Vieux Télégraphe in Châteauneuf has been farming the same high plateau of galets roulés since 1898, producing wines that are the model of the appellation's classic style: generous, complex, and built to age.