France

The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

Like many lovers of Rhone style wines from America, we have just returned from the 2008 edition of the annual Rhone Rangers tasting event at Fort Mason in San Francisco (March 18). This was the 11th year that the Rhone Rangers, a group of about 200 American producers of wines using 22 varietals traditional to France’s Rhone Valley, have shown off their wines at this public tasting event. This year, about 138 wineries presented approximately 520 wines.

During the tasting, we enthusiastically tasted as many wines as we could within the 5 hours (3 public and 2 trade/media) the event was open. We tasted 30 white wines first, and then we tasted 50 reds. We skipped the rosés, not because we don’t love them, but because we didn’t have time. Kudos to Rhone Rangers for providing eco-friendly paper spit cups instead of the plastic cups so common at other tastings. We divided our attention between wines and producers we have known previously, producers new to us, and specific bottlings we didn’t already know. While we found many wines to admire, we are sure we missed other gems.

The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

The classic red wines of the Northern Rhone Valley are some of the world’s greatest. Hermitage, Côte Rôtie and Cornas reds are the finest expressions of Syrah on earth.

But the best of them have gotten to be very expensive, especially in American dollars. Recent vintages of Hermitage from Jean-Louis Chave are now more than $200 per bottle (and his scarce, top cuvee, Cathelin, is over $1,000). Guigal’s Côte Rôtie La Landonne, La Mouline and La Turque are nearly $250 per bottle, and even the Guigal Côte Rôtie Brune et Blond bottling is over $75.

I realized that I was in a red wine rut a few years ago and made a practice to try unfamiliar white wines at tastings. I quickly discovered Viognier, a medium bodied white wine, perfumed with apricots, peaches and white flowers. This stuff is amazing - delicate, yet heady; I can sit for hours just enjoying the aroma. The taste is a revelation – the silky smooth texture hits first, then the fruit and flowers explode. It’s quite wonderful.

The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

Twice, when dining at La Beaugravière, a restaurant in the town of Montdragon near the southern Rhone Valley wine growing areas, we have ordered the very same pair of wines.  La Beaugravière has a renowned list of Rhone wines available, perhaps the best in the world.  So why would we order the same pair of wines on a second occasion?  Because we found them to provide an ideal contrast with each other, and to both be ideal companions to the simple Provençal food served at La Beaugravière.

The origin of Cognac dates back to the 16th century when Dutch settlers came to this French region to purchase salt, wood, and wine. However, the journey back home made preserving the wine difficult and they needed to find a better way to conserve it. They started by distilling the wine into eau-de-vie, which was a good solution for preservation, but eventually they realized a second distillation made for an even finer, more elegant and pleasant product. This is essentially the birth of brandy. In fact, the word “brandy” comes from the Dutch word “branwinj” which means burned wine.

The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

The French appellation contrôllée (or appellation d’origine contrôllée, AOC) system was born in the Rhone Valley (specifically, in Chateauneuf-du-Pape) in the early 20th century. The appellation system is intended to guarantee that the wine comes from the place (appellation) that is identified. It seeks to establish an expectation of a certain quality, and in doing so it sets forth specific requirements.

When I think of wine that is interesting, unique, obscure, high-value, and small-production, I think of Borgueil – the small wine region in France’s Loire Valley that produces almost exclusively Cabernet Franc.

Bordeaux. The word alone conjures up thoughts of the finest wines the world over and the passionate oenophiles who clamor to get their hands on them. London author Stephen Brook, in his new book The Complete Bordeaux: The Wines, The Chateaux, The People, has produced what may be the definitive work on the wines of Bordeaux. In it Brook assesses over 1000 Bordeaux wine properties with detailed information on the grapes, wines, and production of each property. IntoWine caught up with Stephen recently to chat about the book and gather his thoughts on all things Bordeaux.

Why this book now?

Existing books on Bordeaux, such as Robert Parker’s or Clive Coates’s, were focused on tasting notes of individual wines, and paid little attention to lesser known areas of Bordeaux which offer good value to consumers. My book was intended to rectify that by including all regions of Bordeaux, as its title suggests. Many winelovers who might have bought Bordeaux routinely in the past may have become disillusioned by the soaring prices of the top growths, and it was part of my intention to discuss the vast number of excellent wines that remain eminently affordable.

If you’re looking for a wild night, grab a few bottles of Loire Cabernet Franc, call a couple of friends, and swing by your local wine shop. I kid you not. My wife and I did this very thing yesterday evening, and it proved to be one crazy ride.

For the normal among us – those who prefer to spend their evenings at the theater, clubs, house parties, or sporting events – a Cabernet Franc tasting may not sound terribly entertaining.

The Rhone Report: About Rhone and Rhone-Style Wines and Winemakers is part of an ongoing series.

As lovers of Rhone blends, we eagerly traveled to Paso Robles in the spring of 2005 to attend a “blending seminar” at the Tablas Creek Vineyard. We love both the white and red blends from the southern Rhone Valley, among them the wines of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Cotes du Rhone, Gigondas and others. At home in California, we love the wines of the Tablas Creek Vineyard. So we were excited to attend this event and to learn more about blending these wines.