Rhone 2013 - a silver lining - and a quick word on 2012s

Walking through some Grenache vines in Châteauneuf –du-Pape at the end of September 2013 was glorious.  It was a bright, sunny and rather balmy afternoon, unusually so at that time of year even for the Southern Rhône.  As I looked at the vines, sparsely dotted with the odd bunch, most of them grapillons (the second flush of grapes that are left on the vine after vintage because they never ripen and are not used to make wine,) I imagined how glorious the crop would have looked and how gratifying harvest must have been.  So it was to my great surprise later that evening to learn that picking had not even started yet.  Nearly a year on, I travelled out( this week) to taste the results. 


Uneven weather before and during the 2013 flowering period resulted in the dropping of embryonic bunches, followed by aborted flowering of those that remained. Grenache was the most severely affected variety in the South and given that this makes up 70% of the typical Châteauneuf blend, was something of a catastrophe for growers.  A drop of 30 to 50% compared to a usual harvest was reported across the region, for many producers it was the smallest crop they had ever seen.  In the North, depending on the vineyard and individual terroir, Syrah was worse affected than it was further south and there were also tiny yields for Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. Furthermore a very uneven wet and cold summer meant it was a late vintage, the latest in thirty years of wine producing for one particular Hermitage vigneron. 

However the small crop was very much a silver lining, particularly in the North. What grapes there were ripened well in the sunny, dry, end of September / early October conditions and good acidity levels were maintained.

Broadly speaking in the North this is a 2012 plus plus vintage. 2013 has a similar profile to ’12 but with more ripeness and concentration, whilst retaining an agile, refreshing quality. I tasted some juicy, classical, luscious Cornas and Hermitages but even better were the Côte Rôties, where growers generally recorded half a crop but were offered more than double the recompense by nature in terms of quality.  This is a great Côte Rôtie vintage.  The whites in 2013 are great, too, the Condrieus were some of the best I had ever tasted. They offered ripe, fruity flavours without the heaviness sometimes associated with these wines and displayed mineral, linear finishes. 

In the south the wines were uncommonly refreshing and relatively low in alcohol  (13.5 to 14 % rather than 15 to 15.5%)  However they could not trump the exquisite 2012s - I re-tasted many of these in Châteauneuf – my initial opinion of them last year was more than confirmed.  2012 is one of the very great Châteauneuf-du-Pape vintages with a refinement and subtle beauty that was largely missed or under-appreciated upon release. Snap them up while you can. 

Coming back to 2013: It was an extreme, marginal vintage that will certainly be variable in quality amongst less quality-conscious growers.  There was a fine line between good and bad.  However at the region’s quality-minded estates, on the right side of the line, the quality can be utterly brilliant.

Rhone: Topsy Turvy 2013 and Brilliant 2012

As I arrived in the Southern Rhone last week growers were debating anxiously with each other as to when to start their 2013 grenache harvest, what little of it there was to pick. Poor flowering or Coulure, has literally left just a few berries per vine. The weather last week was positively balmy in Chateauneuf and predicted to continue, but ripening was not complete in all vineyards and the process starts to slow down at this time of year. Picking was predicted to continue this week. This makes 2013 one of the latest in memory, certainly for Jean Abeille of Chateau Mont Redon who has 40 vintages under his belt. Curiously when I travelled to the Northern Rhone a few days later, the harvest had all but finished... A topsy turvy vintage.

2012, however, is a vintage that vignerons are certain of. It is a great year, most notably of all, but not exclusive to, the South. It is not a big crop, but it is qualitatively excellent, and this appears to be the case right across the Southern Rhone, particularly Chateauneuf du Pape. This appears to be a vintage of very ripe but notably fresh flavours, incredibly silky tannins and great intensity. The summer experienced heat spikes but the weather cooled down towards the end of season, so acidities are present but don't seem as high as that other recent great, 2010, and conditions were less dry so that tannins in 2012 are much more pliable. The resulting wines are seductive already but they are deceptively powerful and persistent. Above all the Southern Rhones, particularly in Chateauneuf, offer something very rare, elegance. This seems to me one of the most even-keeled and balanced vintages I have tasted. 

Up north there is a little less homogeneity perhaps, but there are plenty of excellent wines too. There are some wines that may not have been picked at optimum ripeness but the top estates have made, ripe fresh, classically structured Northern Rhones that offer an elegance similar to 2004 but with greater intensity and a little more stuffing. I found the Cornas of Domaine du Coulet and the Cote Rotie of Rene Rostaing to be absolutely outstanding.

For those looking at older vintages, in the south 1999s are drinking well as are 2001s. The excellent 2004s and 2000s are only just starting to come round. In the North the vintages that are drinking beautifully are 2000, 2001, and 2004.