2009 and 2008 Northern Rhone Wines

With sardonic understatement Jacques Grange, the winemaker at Delas Frères, told me that things might not have been so rough in 2008 “if it weren’t for an awful lot of poorly timed rain just before the harvest and the mildew that followed it.” That rain amounted to over 300 millimeters in less than 24 hours at Hermitage on September 3 and 4, which is about 50% of what the area normally gets in a full year. According to Agnès Levet, “years like 2008 make the case that terroir is paramount.” René Rostaing used virtually the same words, adding that “there’s a reason why some vineyards are just better than others, and in ’08 you needed proper exposure for ripeness, air movement and drainage. It’s the difficult years in which the grand crus prove their worth and the lesser sites show why they aren’t great. And even with great sites you still had to make severe selection.” Rostaing is one of a number of producers who sold off a lot of juice before eventually bottling a single wine, which includes the fruit from his very best-situated and oldest vines.

As with any vintage, a few of the best producers were able to pull off an upset and make wines that are bright and delicious, if not destined for a long life. A number of ‘08s are quite tasty right now and remind me a lot of the 2004s, but with lighter body. “But you need to look out for angular acidity in 2008,” said Jean-Louis Chave. “It isn’t so apparent right now but it will show up more clearly in a couple of years.”