2003 and 2002 Northern Rhone Wines

In fact, 2003 has produced many extremely impressive, highly concentrated, opulent wines in the Northern Rhone-wines that will gain new fans for the area, especially among a younger generation of drinkers who are more accustomed to fleshier, superripe syrahs from the New World. Purists, on the other hand, may quibble that the Rhone Valley's 2003s are not classic wines, that they will always be more marked by the vintage character than by their terroirs. But there are really two styles of Northern Rhone wine in 2003. The best of them are extremely ripe versions of classic wines. Others are simply extreme. These latter wines impress with their deep colors, alcoholic weight and larger-than-life textures, but they don't deliver the aromatic interest or flavor development one would expect from a very ripe year.

The 2003 growing season and vinifications. As in many other growing regions of France, the harvest at many estates in the Northern Rhone Valley was the earliest on record. Most of the Cote-Rotie crop was in by the end of August. In Cornas, Noel Verset, who started making wine in 1943, told me this was the first time he had harvested vines in August. Crop levels were sharply lower than the norm, typically down by 30% to 50%. Spring frost had already reduced potential yields in some spots, and the unrelenting summer heat, as well as drought in some areas, resulted in very small berries with little juice. Sugar levels in the grapes widely rose to record levels and acidity levels plunged.

As in Burgundy, many winemakers carried out gentle vinifications, avoiding energetic extraction for fear of making wines with excessive, dry tannins or green tastes (many estates noted that the stems were not completely ripe in 2003, and some of them destemmed almost entirely). But there are some notable exceptions, particularly in Hermitage, where vignerons were often more confident about the balance of their raw materials.

Many winemakers who were concerned about extremely low levels of acidity in their grapes added tartaric acidity to their musts. In some instances acidification has added necessary life to the wines and improved their balance. But in others, the extra acidity has given the wines a tart edge that they may never lose. (Other wines taste green or sour owing to blocked maturity in the grapes, or to the inclusion of second-generation grapes that developed on frosted vines but never ripened properly.) Some winemakers who are philosophically opposed to acidifying maintain that acidity levels remained stable-or even rose-during vinifications, and did not fall during malolactic fermentations because there was so little malic acidity to begin with. They believe that the wines possess more than enough alcohol, phenolic material and extract to last well even where pHs are high and measurable acidity low. Still, several producers I visited this fall acidified their red wines in 2003 for the first time.