Northern Rhone roundup

Some recent wines, many of them great.


  • 2012 Domaine Bernard Gripa St. Joseph Cuvée Le Berceau - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, St. Joseph (3/14/2021)
    Really nice and absolutely ready to go. This is all cool, polished granite, with dark berries, beef, and stone. Ripe and clean, this isn’t the wildest or most animale Syrah but it is stunningly pure and super drinkable. Texturally it’s all there as the tannins have completely smoothed out - this just glides across the palate. With air a bit of wildness starts to show - just enough.
  • 2016 Julien Pilon Cornas L’elégance du Caillou - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas (3/7/2021)
    I got excited when I located a bit of this wine after reading up on Pilon on JLL’s website. The wine comes from old-vine Cornas (~1950s) rented from Elie Bancel and, evidently, it is raised in 1-year-old and 2-3-year-old oak casks. I bought a few for science! The first bottle was a bit reductive at first, then fresh but without much depth; not much better than a Cotes-du-Rhone. This bottle was larger, deeper, more full of material, but with a strong oak imprint, caramel on the finish. I poured some of this into small bottles and am tasting it now, and while the wine has come around some and is showing more authentically Cornas, there still is the strong oak signature seen on the finish and in the overall texture. I am surprised, as JLL has very good things to say about Pilon and I expected a certain terroir transparency, especially with the 2016 vintage. Although now I am rereading JLL and see that Pilon worked with Cuilleron and then Gaillard and perhaps that is all that needs to be said.
  • 1999 Domaine Barge Côte-Rôtie Cuvée du Plessy - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (3/7/2021)
    Blood and guts - this is just great aged Cote-Rotie. It has veered off from the more suave, fresh, Burgundy-like showing from when I last had this wine a few years ago to a much wilder, more smoky and savory, animale presentation. It’s kind of a loud wine - lots of palate-staining flavor. The small core of plump cooked blueberry fruit is seamlessly integrated with the savory smoke, leather, camphor, ash, and soy sauce notes that resound on the long, silky finish. No reason to wait any longer here.
  • 2006 Bernard Levet Côte-Rôtie La Chavaroche - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (3/2/2021)
    Just awesome. A little dull upon pop-n-pour, this soon opened up with a huge smokey and gamey nose with piercing dark raspberry fruit and classic Syrah floral notes powering through. Dark and firm, this is just starting its rise into maturity. Savory, wild, perfect. So well integrated and composed, just a pleasure to drink. This was still going strong on Day 2 as well.
  • 2010 Guillaume Gilles Cornas - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas (1/31/2021)
    Absolute beast. Very dark with purple tones, as you approach its event horizon there is deep blackberry fruit, raw bitter bark, explosive violet flowers, dusty granite. Super powerful and raw on the palate, the fruit is stunning but this quickly clams up and goes balls to the wall feral - game, olives, briar, crushed rocks, all umami all the time. Pretty fierce tannins underneath rasp out the finish. This is old-school Cornas, burly and uncompromising. It needs at least 10 years, probably more, to show its best. I dig it.
  • 1988 E. Guigal Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (1/31/2021)
    Flippin’ epic showing; blind via small bottles from Seth. The nose at first is musty cellar, moss, and antique cabinetry (this had me leaning Burgundy) but it rounds out with air to show beautiful red fruit tinged with leather, soy, meat locker, and some bretty barn door. Beautiful to drink and rivetingly fresh, it’s all red fruit and umami spectrum flavors, very long and utterly captivating. The funky brett and the resolved core of red fruit reminded me of Levet, which was my guess. This gained vigor and intensity over the course of a couple of hours and showed no signs of stopping. A pour from a second small bottle showed smokier and brinier than the first, revealing more archetypal Syrah notes. What a great wine!
  • 2017 Guillaume Gilles Cornas - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas (1/1/2021)
    Hot dag this is great. I am so, so pleased that this bottle is showing so well in contrast to the first bottle I opened back in April. The big purple fruit witnessed then is here in spades, but it’s very well defined and super pure, just rivetingly clear and precise. There’s all sorts of classic Cornas guttiness, rocks, savory meats, etc. wrapped up in here. With air a tart edge emerges as well as a medicinal note of bitter bark - classic Gilles. Very long, with a grippy and gamy cling that doesn’t let go. I’m gaga, agog, googling for more. This is going to be incredible in 10-15 years.
  • 2012 Domaine du Coulet (Matthieu Barret) Cornas Billes Noires - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Cornas (12/16/2020)
    Classic Coulet - thrilling at the get-go with a wildly intoxicating nose of funky truffle, earth, burnished dark red fruit and a pungent sharp edge. It follows on the palate, which is medium-weight and has a strong sense of brewed, rather than fresh, fruit and a warm affect - this is sensual, enveloping wine, hedonistic even, but it’s also got a juiciness and lift. It’s really beguiling and very distinctive and I imagine I’d nail the producer in a blind tasting. But this is Natty Wine™ and, with air, things veer over to the wild and, unfortunately, less pleasurable side - still good, at least for a while, but nowhere near as seductive. Before long, the veil lifts and what’s left is a sharp, very bright red-fruited wine, with some natural-wine funk that creeps in steadily and without mercy, eventually taking over completely. From the onset there’s a slight sense of the gour-de-souris, and that just ramps up and dominates as the wine rests. Still, fun stuff, worth the time and tariff.
  • 2016 Christophe Billon Côte-Rôtie Vieilles Vignes - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (11/30/2020)
    Tasted over two days. This is a very dark and impressive Cote-Rotie, dense and powerful and therefore unlike other Northern Rhone wines I have tasted from the 2016 vintage. The nose is very dark berries tinged with floral notes and smoky game; very refined and clear nose. On the palate there is a lot of extract here, dense but fresh with excellent acids - juicy. The fruit is very ripe but it’s beautifully relieved by the acidity. Power and finesse. On the first day, very fine tannins close out the finish with a cottony texture; these eased significantly toward silkiness on day 2, which showed the wine more open and no worse for wear given the day of air. I’m burying my other bottle for at least ten years.
  • 2018 Clusel-Roch Côte-Rôtie Champon - France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Côte-Rôtie (10/21/2020)
    Seth gave this wine more thought and attention than I did. I followed this for two days, and then came back for a third yesterday. The wine is large-scaled, ripe, marked by oak, blocky and without much finesse. This surprised me as I expected a much more suave and finessed wine.

Is it the vintage? This is only the second Northern Rhone wine I have tasted from 2018; the other is the Domaine de Fauterie Saint-Joseph Les Combaud, which itself is large-scaled, blocky, and a bit dull, lacking freshness.

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Damn that Levet sounds delish!!

Nice write up. Many of my favorites listed.

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This is like a list of NoRho that will never be found on the shelf at a typical LWS…

That old school Guigal has been kicking ass for over 20 years now. (It must be one of the first Northern Rhone wines I ever tried.) Wow.

Seth’s got another six bottles or so of this!

Totally in the zone. These wines are just awesome when ready, and it’s just the beginning for the '06.

Is Brune et Blonde the best value for Cote Rotie?

It certainly is for Guigal! Some might say it’s their best Cote Rotie too.

[whistle.gif]

I’m not sure what B&B is anymore. It was a wine made from purchased grapes, and the last vintage where I understand they still had most of their best historical contracts was 1991. The explosion in grower bottling in CR happened in the late 1980s and early 1990s. It’s a different world now.

Zach, how much air did you give the Levet?

Geeez man. Were these all bottles enjoyed at home, or at some sort of event? Consider me jealous.

Awesome notes. Happy that I just bought a lot of Levet in the 2013-2016 vintages :slightly_smiling_face:.

I had 1999 Allemand Chaillot this Friday! Crazy good Northern Rhone wine :grin:

I’m glad these were tasting notes and not a class action suit solicitation. Excellent write ups!

Mahalo for the great detailed notes. I have a bunch of those, unfortunately not the Guigal.

Great stuff, thanks for the notes. I have never come across that particular Clusel-Roch bottling (I thought the only CRs they make are Classique/Schist, Viaillère and Grandes Places) so can’t comment there but personally I don’t think I’ll be buying much 2018, although that is partly due to wanting to focus on 2020 (my son’s birth year). I am surprised Gripa is not discussed more here, I was pretty impressed with their wines.

The few 2018’s i have tasted have just felt big and ripe. Only 2018’s i have bought for my cellar is Franck Balthazar Chaillot (I trust Balthazar in all vintages) and a few 2018 Verset Cornas. The Verset Cornas is ripe and with high alcohol, but somehow it still feels balanced and fresh (probably saved by the wholeclusters). I will probably not buy any more 18’s. 2019 sounds like the same story more or less. So personally i am just backfilling until we get a colder vintage… if ever…

Damn, doesn’t sound too promising. I’ve yet to try 2018s but did too buy the Chaillot and Crozes from Franch. Hard times for us who enjoy freshness and moderate alcohol! Here’s to hoping for cooler years…

I have the 2018 Crozes from Franck too. It does not feel warm :slight_smile: He is very good at handling warmer vintages it seems.

That’s some mighty fine work Zach (& Seth).

Would love to do Levet/Gilles/Benetiere/Allemand blind once they all get near striking distance at rule of 15 (so maybe late 2010s in the near future).