Last night had a tasting with one of my groups.
Theme: Northern Rhone Red Wines under $100
It was a really good wine dinner with all of us bringing really really good wines representing the best regions of Northern Rhone. The only red grape allowed to go into a Northern Rhone wine is Syrah (shiraz) and they all tasted very different from the usual Aussie reds that many of us are used to.
Due to the budget of under $100, we couldn't bring in any of the special single vineyard bottlings from the top producers but we had more of the mid-tier wines from the top producers instead; all of which showed remarkable well and clearly capable of aging further.
the ages of the wines that night ranged from 7 years to 15 years
2007 E. Guigal Cote Rotie
2001 Reynard Cornas
2001 Domaine Jamet Cote Rotie
2004 Rene Rostaing Cote Rotie
1999 Delas Hermitage "Marquise de la Tourette"
2004 Domaine Clusel Roch Cote Rotie "Les Grandes Places"
1999 Paul Jaboulet Aine Cornas "Domaine de Saint Pierre" (mine)
For those who never tried before you should really try some northern rhone wines for an entirely different experience versus aussie shiraz. Yes they tend to be more expensive than your average aussie red but at under $100 all these bottles really showed incredibly well.
Northern Rhone sub-regions below are only these few below with Hermitage and Cote Rotie being the most premium of the batch. For casual fine drinking, good producers who make St Joseph and Crozes-Hermitage are some of the really good value buys.
Condrieu only makes white with their special Viognier grapes. Cornas can be described as polarizing as their top wines are really special and tend to need a lot of age. they used to be considered one the top sub-regions of northern rhone but the limelight nowadays is on Hermitage and Cote Rotie. However the Cornas I brought was really really good and when it was revealed the guests were surprised at how elegant and refined this cornas was; traditionally cornas was known to be more rustic and old fashioned.
Northern Rhone Sub-Regions
- Hermitage
- Cote Rotie
- Cornas
- St Joseph
- Condrieu (whites only)
- St Peray
- Chateau Grillet
- Crozes-Hermitage