The 2013 and 2012 Northern Rhône Wines
Northern Rhône fans will find two very different vintages in 2013 and 2012. A cool growing season and late harvest yielded nervy, edgy wines in 2013, while warmer, drier conditions in 2012 resulted in supple, forward reds and whites that will drink well upon release.
A Contemporary Perspective
It's hard to believe that not so many years ago most northern Rhône wines, aside from tiny-production items and bottles from a handful of cult producers, were languishing on retail shelves, in restaurants' cellars and on wholesalers' close-out lists. With the exception of a handful of well-known wines such as Guigal's single-vineyard Côte-Rôties, Chave’s Hermitage and Jaboulet's Hermitage La Chapelle, these were pretty serious insider wines. Chapoutier's quality turnaround had kicked into gear, the situation at Delas had greatly improved, and producers such as Clape, Jamet, Ogier and Rostaing had built solid reputations and loyal followings, but after that the bottom dropped precipitously.
Fast forward to the here and now and things have been turned completely on their head. The asking prices for wines from Jamet and Chave have gone through the roof, and bottles from extinct northern Rhône domaines like Gentaz-Dervieux, Raymond Trollat and Noël Verset are regularly commanding up to a thousand dollars, and that’s if you’re even able to find them in the secondary market. That’s quite a change from the late 1980s, when I first started visiting these growers.
Part of the Clape family's library of old Cornas
While there’s no single dominant reason for this dramatic and relatively recent turn of events, I have no doubt that a major factor is the even more extreme upswing in prices for small-production Burgundies, which themselves leapt up in response to skyrocketing tariffs for collectible Bordeaux. In the hearts and minds of most of the world's most serious and deep-pocketed wine collectors France still rules, and, historically, the regions that most wine buyers have regarded as France's big dogs are Bordeaux, Burgundy and the Rhône Valley, the north in particular.
The northern Rhône's historic reputation as one of the world's premier wine-producing regions is largely attributable to the fame of Hermitage, whose red wines in particular have been highly collectible for literally centuries. It's hard to find a book or article on the wines of the Rhône that doesn't retell the story of Thomas Jefferson visiting Hermitage in 1787 and declaring its white wine "the first wine in the world without exception" (look, it just happened again!). And Pliny the Elder's writing on the wines of Vienne (i.e., Côte-Rôtie) in 71 A.D. have been quoted for generations as well. So it's not as if the region came out of nowhere, like many hot winegrowing areas that emerged on the scene in the second half of the 20th century.
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Northern Rhône fans will find two very different vintages in 2013 and 2012. A cool growing season and late harvest yielded nervy, edgy wines in 2013, while warmer, drier conditions in 2012 resulted in supple, forward reds and whites that will drink well upon release.
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Producers in this Article
- Alain Verset
- Anne-Sophie Pic & Michel Chapoutier
- Aurélien Chatagnier
- Cave de Tain
- Cédric Parpette
- Christine David
- Christophe Blanc
- Christophe Curtat
- Christophe Pichon
- Delas Frères
- Domaine A. Clape
- Domaine Alain Graillot
- Domaine Alain Voge
- Domaine André Perret
- Domaine Barou
- Domaine Bernard Burgaud
- Domaine Bernard Faurie
- Domaine Bernard Gripa
- Domaine Chambeyron
- Domaine Chapoutier et Lucidi
- Domaine Clusel-Roch
- Domaine Coursodon
- Domaine de la Mordorèe
- Domaine des Martinelles
- Domaine des Miquettes
- Domaine Duclaux
- Domaine du Colombier
- Domaine du Monteillet/Stéphane Montez
- Domaine du Murinais/Luc Tardy
- Domaine du Tunnel/Stéphane Robert
- Domaine Entrefaux
- Domaine Facchin
- Domaine Farjon
- Domaine François Bracoud
- Domaine Gallet
- Domaine Garon
- Domaine Georges Vernay
- Domaine Gilles Robin
- Domaine Jean-Luc et Jean-Paul Jamet
- Domaine Jean-Michel Gerin
- Domaine J.L. Chave
- Domaine Maxime Graillot
- Domaine Michelas St. Jemms
- Domaine Monier
- Domaine Patrick Jasmin
- Domaine Pierre Gonon
- Domaine Vallet
- Domaine Vincent Paris
- E. Guigal
- Eric Rocher
- Éric Texier
- Famille Levet
- Famille Tardieu (Tardieu-Laurent)
- Fayolle Fils & Fille
- Ferraton Père & Fils
- Francisque Lapandéry
- Franck Balthazar
- François Corompt
- Gabriel Meffre
- Georges Lelektsoglou
- Gérard Mouton
- Guillaume Clusel
- Guillaume Gilles
- Hervé Souhaut
- Jacques Leménicier
- J. Boutin
- Jean-Luc Colombo
- Jean-Paul Brun
- J.L. Chave Sélection
- Julien Pilon
- Laurent Betton
- Laurent Habrard
- Les Loubas
- Les Vins de Vienne
- Lionel Faury
- Louis Barruol
- Louis Chèze
- Lucie Fourel/Le Domaine de Lucie
- Maison Chapoutier
- Marie et Pierre Benetière
- Matthieu Barret
- M & S Ogier d'Ampuis
- Nicolas Serrette
- Olivier Beraud
- Patrick et Christophe Bonnefond
- Paul Armellie - Cave de Chantel
- Paul Jaboulet Aîné
- Pierre Gaillard
- Pierre-Jean Villa
- René Rostaing
- Romain Duvernay
- Thierry Allemand
- Vincent Cluzel
- Xavier Mourier - Domaine de Pierre Blanche
- Yann Chave
- Yannick Alléno & Michel Chapoutier
- Yves Cuilleron
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2013
2012