THE OTHER RHÔNE:
TREASURES OUTSIDE THE MAINSTREAM

By Peter Gibson

Wine lovers are aware of the nobility of great Hermitage, Côte-Rôtie and Cornas in the north and Châteauneuf du Pape in the south, and they’re more than willing to open their wallets to procure the rarest and most critically acclaimed examples. What many don’t realize is that wonderful alternatives exist from the Rhône valley’s so-called “lesser” appellations. These options offer more genuine and specific expressions of terroir than everyday Côtes-du-Rhône – and while they are perhaps less majestic, they are certainly more affordable than the coveted crus above.

Off the beaten track in the Rhône Valley we still find wines to satisfy the curious and the avid, the value seeker and the terroir snob: wines with a true sense of place and a singular voice. This month we’ll focus on three expressions that don’t come immediately to mind when we hear the phrase “Rhône Valley.”

ST. JOSEPH

By Northern Rhône standards, St. Joseph is an extremely large region. The best vineyards in St. Joseph lie in the original 222-acre appellation drafted in 1956, but today the size of the region has been extended to encompass nearly 7,500 acres, with vines often planted on its flat plateaus in addition to its steep hillsides.

The extended St. Joseph zone covers eight miles along the west bank of the Rhône river. In the original zone one finds the steep, granite-based slopes needed to produce fine syrah, but St. Joseph (unlike Cornas immediately to the south) offers a syrah-based wine that’s lighter and fruitier than the other great examples of the Northern Rhône. These wines are distinctly more red-fruit oriented and lower in tannin, and they are best drunk young. The best examples have very transparent fruit expressions that show, even in their youth, the special granite soil of the Northern Rhône. With the number of quality-conscious producers growing, this is a region ripe for exploration by dedicated syrah and Northern Rhône enthusiasts.

2001 Thierry Farjon St. Joseph $18.99 / $230.00 case **

Thierry Farjon is one of St. Joseph’s rising stars. In Malleval, near St. Joseph’s border with Condrieu, Farjon produces both red and white St. Joseph as well as a highly sought after Condrieu. His wines have achieved somewhat of a cult following in Europe and Japan, and based on this terrific 2001 St. Joseph, it’s easy to see why.

Farjon’s 2001 is textbook St. Joseph rouge: a lovely purple-ruby color and offers fascinating aromas of fruitwood smoke, leather, violets, dried herbs and bacon fat. The palate shows unusual clarity and focus with lip-smacking cranberry and red currant fruit expressions enveloping a lovely granite soil signature. The wine is not about power or impact, but rather finesse and elegance. In fact, over time the wine grows with complexity as it gains focus. The more I returned to the wine, the more interesting it became: the fruit became sweeter and snappier, and more aromatic complexities emerged.

This is truly the antithesis of syrah from the New World and sure to delight fans of old-school Côte-Rôtie. The wine’s crisp acidity makes it most versatile at the table, but its lack of tannin makes it a candidate for near-term enjoyment. I suggest decanting this a half-hour before serving with simple lamb dishes, roast chicken, quail, rabbit or gratin dauphinois.

GIGONDAS

Gigondas has been a Southern Rhône lover’s passion for years. Its devotees cite its honest rusticity and terrific value when it is invariably compared with its far more famous and prestigious neighbor, Châteauneuf du Pape. Gigondas lies to the northeast of Châteauneuf du Pape and was formerly one of the Côtes-du-Rhône Villages before it was granted full AOC status in 1971.

Producers in Gigondas rely heavily on the grenache grape, which can by law comprise up to 80% of the blend. cinsault, as a principal blending grape, is losing favor to syrah and mourvèdre, which the AOC now insists must comprise at least 15% of vine plantings. When the weather is cold and the rain is falling sideways, there’s no better remedy than a roaring fire and a glass of rustic, chewy Gigondas.

2001 Domaine de la Grapillon d’Or Gigondas $25.99 / $278.00 case **

The Domaine de la Grapillon d’Or is one of the great historic names of Gigondas. What’s especially refreshing about the domaine is its “no fuss, we do it as we always have” attitude. No flashy barriques, no de-stemming, fourteen month’s ageing in large neutral-oak foudre. For the lover of Southern Rhône’s finest expressions, this translates to one of the purest, deepest and lustiest renditions of Gigondas. The blend is 80% grenache (the legal maximum), 15% syrah and 5% cinsault.

2001 was such a lovely, balanced vintage for the Southern Rhône, and the wines show rich fruit, crisp acidity and framing structure. Grapillon d’Or’s 2001 Gigondas casts an opaque robe of a black-ruby core with a lovely purple rim. The classic Gigondas bouquet of black plums, cassis, garrigue and wet stone emerges with gently aeration. The wine greets the palate with a dusty black cherry fruit expression followed by complex notes of tar, stony terroir, and chewy black licorice. The wine coats the palate with this richness, but never lays heavily or gives the impression of imbalance. The back-palate adds notes of dried oregano and thyme, black pepper, leather and fine-grained tannins. The finish reprises the wine’s black fruit theme and echoes its stony soil signature and impression of dried herbs.

To my palate, what’s so special about the wine is the sense of focus and harmony that the fruit, soil, and herbal components achieve with the wines acid and tannin structure. I suggest enjoying this beauty now for its lovely primary fruit expression, but please be sure to lay some down for seven to ten years to allow the wine’s latent leather and truffle complexities to emerge.

CHATEAUNEUF DU PAPE BLANC

Whereas the Northern Rhône’s greatest vineyards are on steep granite hillsides, Châteauneuf du Pape’s topography is gently undulating and nowhere near as precipitous. Châteauneuf’s most unique feature are rounded white stones, called “galets roulés,” that litter the vast majority of the region. These stones were left as glaciers receded during the Ice Age, and they serve to trap heat during the daytime and reflect it back to the vine during the evening hours. This allows for greater ripening of the fruit.

Most of Châteauneuf du Pape’s production is red, with only three percent white wine, and certainly the majority of press attention is focused on the finest producers’ prestige cuvées and reserve bottlings of red wine. What many wine lovers don’t know is that the quality of Châteauneuf’s white wines has also risen in concert with its reds.

The majority of Châteauneuf’s white plantings are grenache blanc and clairette, with bourboulenc, picpoul, picardin and, increasingly, roussanne added for acidity or bouquet complexity. The blancs have quietly undergone a transformation from dull and oxidized to fresh, complex, compelling and utterly distinctive expressions of their terroirs. While never cheap, great Châteauneuf du Pape blanc is a truly fascinating wine for the more adventurous among us. They are also surprisingly versatile at the table.

2004 Vieux Télégraphe Châteauneuf du Pape Blanc $37.99 / $406.00 case **

It’s no secret that 2004 is shaping up to be a classic Châteauneuf vintage, and the white and rosé wines from the southern Rhône that have already graced our shelves are among the finest in recent memory. Vieux Télégraphe takes its white wine seriously. From vines averaging thirty-five years and planted under a cover of galets roulés on the Plateau de la Crau in Châteauneuf’s eastern sector, we have Vieux Télégraphe’s finest white yet.

A blend of 40% clairette, 30% grenache blanc, and 15% each roussanne and bourboulenc, Vieux Télégraphe’s 2004 casts a lovely golden hue from the bowl and fills the room with sweet aromas of honeysuckle, acacia and fennel. Swirl it, breathe deeply, and further aromas of golden raisins, wet stones, gardenia blossoms and wild honey appear. On the palate the wine is first rich, buttery and honeyed with ripe melon-like fruit playing with hints of stones, sweet roasted parsnips and braised fennel. After the richness, the wine cuts with stony, mineral-tinged acidity that elevates the fruit and feels heavy or leaden. Finally the Vieux Télégraphe blanc finishes with echoes of the sweet anise and melon fruit, then adds a crisp citrus impression at the very end.

While I think the Vieux Télégraphe blanc will hold for several years in the cellar, I don’t think it will ever be as lively or as expressive as it is today. I suggest serving this gem now as a cool weather white and over the next year or so with roast chicken, pork and duck, shellfish, Ahi tuna, and my French host’s favorite, sea snails steamed in a fennel, wine and garlic broth with plenty of fresh aïoli on the side.