Jancis Robinson on goings-on in the northern Rhône

  • Thread starter Thread starter VS
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Hm, after calling the N. Rhone 'one of the most exciting wine regions of France,' she devotes the column almost exclusively to Guigal and Chave.
 
"...according to the dapper Rostaing, you had to vinify the 09s looking for structure because they were a bit too aimable. Accordingly he destemmed hardly any of the grapes, hoping to leech some tannin from the stems, comforted by the fact that 30 years ago this was common practice and they were excellent wines."

Who knew, eh, Brezeme?
 
Victor, is the long cold maceration of whites a common practice among the Spanish avant-garde?
 
Is there anywhere where it isn't? :-)

Some interesting results are obtained that way lately in Spain with grapes that are not wildly aromatic - and the Madrid albillo (one of two, unrelated albillos in Spain) is a case in point. There's also a crazy Scottish guy making wine outside Madrid in quasi-orange fashion who gets interesting results out of the normally dull airn.
 
Different strokes for different folks. Her increasing enthusiasm for the wines is simultaneous with my rapidly diminishing enthusiasm and what I regard as less than positive changes that I have seen since I began visiting in 1986.

Of her list of Cte-Rtie favorites -- Bonnefond, Clusel-Roch, Gangloff, Stphane Ogier, Jamet and Rostaing -- only one overlaps with mine -- Barge, Burgaud, Faury, Jamet, Jasmin, Levet, and Texier -- and otherwise we're at stylistic polar opposites.
 
When do you reckon the change happened? I just had a 2001 Jamet - not overdone, not dull, not dark side.
 
I think there may be an issue with Jamet's authorized US importer. The Jamet say that it's the same thing being shipped to the US as to everywhere else (notwithstanding the US importer's well-known love of new oak and frequent specially-oaked bottlings for other producers), but when I used to compare authorized-importer and gray market bottlings here in the US (which I confess I've not done for many years), there was a significant difference in favor of the the gray market sources. I confess also that I've not had a Jamet wine in the US in some time -- only at the estate and in restaurants in France.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Great quote"...according to the dapper Rostaing, you had to vinify the 09s looking for structure because they were a bit too aimable. Accordingly he destemmed hardly any of the grapes, hoping to leech some tannin from the stems, comforted by the fact that 30 years ago this was common practice and they were excellent wines."

Who knew, eh, Brezeme?
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After racking, whole cluster...
Boundaries between natural wines and industrial wines will soon be fuzzy.
 
IMHO, Jamet went to a darker style around 2000. They still make great wines, but I favoured the style of the 90s better. They do very good cotes du rhone in both colours
 
Well, we had the 2001 together the other night, Ignacio. If that's dark side, gimme dark side...
 
originally posted by John Roberts:
Didn't Jancis write an article a couple of years ago saying that Cornas was largely undrinkable?
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That was almost 11 years ago (May 2000), in the Financial Times, when she described a Cornas tasting: "If I tell you that in the end we had to plunder our host the Collector's cellar to find something that was fun to drink, then you will grasp something of Cornas's inherent ability to please. Of the 17 bottles, from several different cellars and sources, two were reduced and stinky (as Syrah so easily can be), 16 were tough (mostly as old boots), one was corked, one was metallic, one was volatile and another slightly oxidised."

But then in 2007 she wrote on her web site: "Seven years ago I was so unmoved by a tasting of some of supposedly smart wines from this famous appellation that I wrote 'Cornas an old but sorry tale' in the Financial Times. But things have moved on and today there are perhaps a dozen really exciting producers in this favoured corner of the northern Rhône. I even chose no fewer than two Cornass as wines of the week in late 2004 for example, Dom Joël et Eric Durand 2000 Cornas and Dom Vincent Paris, Granit 60 2000 Cornas."
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Salil Benegal:
Better than having Verset and Allemand publicized in the FT...
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At this point, I think they can have Verset.
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There's still the auction market to be concerned about and he doesn't even get any benefit from rising prices there.
 
She liked Allemand in the follwup tasting at Maco but as I recall remained unimpressed by the rest.

It looks to me as though her preferences in Cornas are consistent. The Durand brothers are improving but don't have the best sites and by their own admission have vines that need more age. I would call them between traditional and modern. Vincent Paris is very good, IMO, but also is somewhat between traditional and modernist. Ditto for Stphane Robert, whom I believe she has praised, too. Allemand would fit in that class, too. But Verset, Clape, Robert Michel, Juge, and apparently also Balthazar, Barret, Courbis, and Dumien-Serette, are not for her. So I think one can reasonably conclude that she likes a particular kind of Cornas that corresponds, unsurprisingly, to the particular kind of Cte-Rtie that she likes.

And with the significant expansion of the last edition of The World Atlas of Wine, room still could not be found for a map of Cornas.

Speaking of Cornas, has anyone found a bottle of Rosenthal's new guy and tried it? I understand that there is pitifully little of it, and I haven't tracked any down yet.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Speaking of Cornas, has anyone found a bottle of Rosenthal's new guy and tried it? I understand that there is pitifully little of it, and I haven't tracked any down yet.
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Any more specifics?
Best, Jim
 
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