The Greatest Moment in My First Winemaking Tour of France – Hint: It was in the Northern Rhône

Experience Exceptional Wines of the Northern Rhône
With Owner Randy Kemner this Friday
Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Condrieu, Cornas & More
October 9 Tasting — Northern Rhône

I won't kid you.

The Syrahs of the Northern Rhône are temperamental, almost as wonky as the Pinot Noirs of Burgundy. But like their neighbors to the north, when they hit paydirt, Northern Rhône Syrahs can be expressive like few wines on the planet.

Experienced tasters describe aromas and flavors of blueberries, violets, bacon and other smoked meats. Sometimes they can be funky to the point of off-putting, marred by excessive stemminess or bacterial tastes. Like Burgundy, it's worth the search to find the ones that transport you to other worlds. You'll never be the same after you do.

The Single Greatest Revelation

My first trip to Europe was a professional tour of Kermit Lynch Imports wineries which would include stops in Champagne, Alsace, Provence, the southern Rhône Valley, the Northern Rhône Valley and Burgundy. We visited many small producers and a few world-class wineries, dined with them, sampled their wines and walked their vineyards. It was January 1992 and it was icy-cold in many of those cellars.

To say it opened my eyes like never before is an understatement. Watching a husband and wife hand-disgorging their Blanc de Blancs in Champagne's Côte des Blancs, tasting wine with the legendary Olivier Humbrecht in Alsace, eating the world's best apricot jam on a Ritz cracker by a Cadillac-loving Provençale winemaker, eating a seven-course all-truffle dinner while enjoying a vertical of Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf-du-Pape going back to 1978 with the Brunier brothers, sampling an old, exquisite white Hermitage with Gérard Chave, visiting the groundbreaking Domaine de Trévallon near Les Baux-de-Provence and barrel sampling with François Jobard in Meursault, and Michel Colin and Guy Amiot in Chassagne-Montrachet all made indelible memories I will always cherish.

But the single greatest revelation of that trip was not in the glamor of a Champagne cave or a Burgundy cellar, but in a rustic tasting area of a small Northern Rhône producer named Robert Jasmin in Côte-Rôtie. Pulling out his glass thief from an old barrel of 1990 Côte-Rôtie, Robert carefully poured the black, exotically scented Syrah into my glass, and after taking in the blueberry flavors of the rich black wine, it not only transported me to near-ecstasy, but cemented forever what the noble grape Syrah was capable of.

My wine appreciation journey was bifurcated on the spot. There was life before Côte-Rôtie and a different life after Côte-Rôtie.

Northern Rhône is Syrah Country

When the term "Rhône" gets tossed around in wine circles, most wine lovers think of the varieties and blends of the Southern Rhône Valley, particularly the Grenache-heavy wines of Châteauneuf-du-Pape and surrounding wine villages. Or perhaps they think of Cal-Rhône wines like those of Tablas Creek. That's logical because the Southern Rhône makes up 95% of Rhône Valley wine production, mostly red wines by a wide margin. The Southern Rhône has a Mediterranean climate and is influenced by the garrigue—the rosemary, thyme, wild brush scents of its environment.

What fewer Americans have experienced, though, are the much rarer wines of the Northern Rhône whose reds are made up nearly exclusively by Syrah grown in a cooler Continental climate. It actually snowed during my first visit to Côte-Rôtie in January 1992. These wines are not sun-saturated as much as sculpted, and their scents are other-worldly.

A half-hour's drive south of Lyon, after the Rhône River takes a 90 degree turn to the south, lies the village of Ampuis, headquarters of the Guigal empire and in the shadow of the craggy terraced slopes of Côte-Rôtie, where the region's entire production is just above that of Napa's Joseph Phelps winery. Nearby is Condrieu, the tiny region that gave birth to Viognier, one of the Rhône's most popular white exports. Legally, up to 20% Viognier is allowed to be co-fermented with Syrah in Côte-Rôtie, but in practice many producers use much less than that, if any.

Another towering Syrah appellation of the Northern Rhône is Hermitage, a single hill facing the Rhône River whose total annual production of all its producers amounts to just 60,000 cases, the same as Schramsberg alone makes in a year. Less than 30% of Hermitage production is made up of white grapes—Marsanne and Roussanne only—the practice of co-fermenting white and red grapes is mostly over. Most of Hermitage is 100% Syrah, and is of such superior structure that it is the aging champion of the Northern Rhône. But the white blends of Hermitage and the Northern Rhône can be transformative, too. Take it from me.

If a third region can lay claim to noble status in the Northern Rhône, it is Cornas, a tiny region a few miles south of Hermitage. Though some critics have criticized the wines of Cornas as "rustic", the top producers like Clape, Franck Balthazar and Thierry Allemand produce magnificent wines I'd be proud to put on any table.

More affordable wines in the Northern Rhône come from Saint-Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage, the latter making up half of the entire production of the Northern Rhône. Syrah is again the main grape, with the white Marsanne and Roussanne making up a small fraction of the production.

In the southernmost point of the Northern Rhône, Saint-Péray produces a small amount of still and sparkling wine from Marsanne and Roussanne. Some of the outlying sub-regions produce acceptable Syrah, too, labelled Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes Syrah. You must look far and wide to find good examples, and when you do, they are great bargains, for sure.

Why Experience the Wines of the Northern Rhône?

I suppose you could go through life as a Cabernet lover without having experienced Bordeaux, or be addicted to Chardonnay without a white Burgundy or Chablis touching your lips. You might as well ask why one studies history.

I would argue that all wines we drink today—no matter where they are grown—have their origins in Europe. We blend Merlot into Cabernet because that's what they do in Bordeaux. We use French oak barrels to mellow Chardonnay because that's what they do in Burgundy.

And the confusion of what Syrah should smell like and taste like when it is grown in a warm or cool climate could be straightened out and clarified after spending time with the wines of the Northern Rhône Valley. Only until you sample a Viognier from Condrieu can you appreciate a new-world version and whether it is true to form or an exaggeration. At the very least, you'll be stretching your sensory muscles and experiencing wine in ways you could never have imagined.

Life before Côte-Rôtie and life after Côte-Rôtie.

Experience Exceptional Wines of the Northern Rhône
With Owner Randy Kemner this Friday
Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, Condrieu, Cornas & More
October 9 Tasting — Northern Rhône