2014 and 2013 Northern Rhône: Great Wines If You Can Find Them

This is the best of times and the worst of times for northern Rhône wine enthusiasts. Recent vintages, especially 2013, yielded more outstanding wines than ever before but yields have mostly been low, sometimes pitifully so. On top of that, worldwide demand for the top bottlings is on fire, making the task of tracking them down a difficult and increasingly expensive endeavor.

Steadily growing demand over the last few years for the best wines of the region has not only decimated the always-small inventories of the top producers, it has quite literally spilled into the future. During my December and February visits to the area, a number of producers told me that they have had to cut back allocations, often severely, for longstanding export markets, collectors and restaurant clients just to have wine for their own personal stock and for the occasional lucky tourist who might stop by their cellar for a visit.

Vines on the steeply terraced vineyards of Côte-Rôtie are trained on a traditional vertical stake sytem know as a chey

It’s an unfortunate irony that the surge in popularity for northern Rhône wines has occurred during a period of low yields and high—even legendary—quality. The good news is that conscientious, clean winemaking has become the norm, as it has been in Bordeaux and Burgundy for some time. There is simply no excuse other than climatic disaster for making anything less than very good wines these days. In addition, the standard practice now is to sell off or declassify sub-par fruit, at least at the best addresses. As Stéphane Ogier put it to me, “because of the increase in knowledge in the vines and better equipment in the cellar we are spoiled when it comes to our idea of quality: what we think of now as a solid vintage would have been considered epic by our parents.”

The 2014 Growing Season and Harvest