Northern Rhône: Solid ’14 Reds and Outstanding ’15 Whites

BY JOSH RAYNOLDS | JULY 20, 2017

The northern Rhône produced a number of excellent red wines in 2014, although yields are down. Happily, 2015 brought an ideal growing season and harvest, with healthy quantities of clean fruit. My early look at the finished white wines indicates that ’15 is a vintage for the ages.

Mother Nature Shows She’s the Boss

Following the low crop of 2013, growers in the northern Rhône were hoping even more than usual for an abundant 2014 crop to make up for the previous year’s shortfall. After a rainy winter that replenished water supplies and an on-time budbreak followed by warm weather that pushed the growing season up to two weeks ahead of schedule, they had reason to be optimistic. Unfortunately, Mother Nature had different plans and the region was hit hard by relentless rainfall of historic proportions along with often devastating hailstorms immediately after the early-June flowering. In fact, the hailstorms were in many cases so severe that entire vineyards were a total loss. The excessive precipitation bloated the grapes, so non-stop vineyard work was necessary to thin the crop and remove fruit damaged by the hail. Temperatures were generally cool, which brought the growing season back to normal. Conditions remained favorable through the veraison in early August. Except for a stray rainstorm in the third week of August, ripening proceeded smoothly. Harvest commenced under warm and dry conditions in mid-September and extended in many cases until the middle of October, which is quite late by modern-day standards.

Late winter at Condrieu, looking north toward Côte-Rôtie