Northern Rhone Reds - TonghamTaster’s French Wine Tasting Course – week 21

The 12 month on-line course to help you learn about French wines - Top tips on how to get value when buying them - Reasonably priced up-to-date recommendations of what to buy and try in the UK - Bringing you the best of Tongham Village Hall wine tastings.

INTRODUCTION
This week we cover Northern Rhone reds which are much less well known than their Southern Rhone cousins. This is because they are not so common – the Northern Rhone only produces about one twentieth of the wine that the Southern Rhone produces.

LOCALITYThe Northern Rhone stretches along the Rhone valley south from Vienne to Valence. Most vineyards are on the steep slopes above the river although there are some flatter areas around St Joseph and Crozes-Hermitages, but these wines are often of inferior quality. The area has very hot sunny summers and this combined with the slopes gives the name of one of the wines – Cotes Rotie, or literally roasted hillsides.

VARIETALS
The red wines of the Northern Rhone are predominantly made with the Syrah grape, which is known as Shiraz throughout most of the rest of the World. In some appellations the winemakers are allowed to add some white grapes to lighten and add fragrance to the wines – depending on the AOC this might be Viognier, Marsanne or Roussanne.

THE WINES
Crozes-Hermitage is by far the largest of the North Rhone AOCs and the one you are most likely to be able to afford along with St Joseph. The AOC is centred around Tain-l’hermitage. Much of the wine can be drunk young as it is more approachable than some of the high-quality syrahs due to its soft fruitiness. Well worth a try.

St Joseph is centred around Tournon but stretches for much of the area between Vienne and Valence. The quality is frankly rather variable and are most are quite light and best drunk young.
Hermitage is going up the scale of quality and is probably the best known of the Northern Rhone AOCs despite its small size. It is grown near the town of Tain l’hermitage on south facing granite slopes. This is a star wine and demands some cellaring before drinking – one for the connoisseurs.
Cornas is on the opposite side of the river to Hermitage. The wines can be quite tannic and thus need time to age. Although, they can be on the rustic side they do at least have body.
Cote Rotie wines are rather expensive and I would have to admit to trying them only once. However, this is the best Northern Rhone red of all.

THE TASTE
These red syrah wines vary from the easy drinking fruity reds of St Joseph and Crozes Hermitages to the heavy weight wines of Hermitage and the Cote Rotie. These latter wines are some of the best Syrah/Shiraz wines in the World and show of the grape’s prime characteristics of full bodied berry laden spicy smokiness.

TOP TIPS
• Look out for Crozes-Hermitages as they can be great value for money.
• Try one of the top wines, at least once, but give it time to mature.

HOMEWORK
For your homework this week buy and try one of this week’s Northern Rhone red wines, which may include one of the following:
Waitrose - Cave de Tain 2007 Les Hauts de Pavières Crozes-Hermitage – about £10.
Majestic – Cave de Tain 2007 Crozes-Hermitages – about £10.
Waitrose - Cave de Saint-Désirat Cuvée Prestige 2007 Saint-Joseph – about £13.

FOOD PAIRINGS
These wines will normally match well with a pheasant casserole in red wine sauce or rare roast meats. The lighter reds are great on their own or I actually like them slightly chilled with a summer BBQ.

COMING SOON
Next week we cover the other Rhone wines including some incredible perfumed white wines and an unusual sparkling wine. If you missed the early weeks of this course, it is not too late to catch up. Just click on the French Wine Course link at the top of this page.

February Wine of the Month

As expected wine of the month for February goes to one of the wonderful reds we had at the Tongham Tapas Fiesta – The Camins del Priorat 2008. This wine by Alvaro Palacious, one of the best and most well known wine makers in Priorat, was a great hit at our February Spanish wine tasting. It has great power and lovely flavours and I think very good value at around £15. The primary grape is Carignan, known locally as Carinena or Salmso which is not normally a great grape but does well when there are low yields such as in Priorat. The wine also contains Grenacha, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz. You can buy this wine in-line at Berry Brothers and Rudd and Waitrose.

My favourite wine of the month but not currently available in the UK was an absolutely stunning Sancerre white. The 2007 La Cote des Monts Damnes Sancerre by Henri Bourgeois was zesty and wonderfully minerally. It had life and really sung to me! It had citrus but none of the less desirable flavours one gets in some Sauvignon Blanc. Worth looking out for this wine if in the region – I purchased mine in Sancerre back in 2008 and wish I had some more. You can find various years available in various countries on Wine Searcher if you look.

A third wine of note was a really nice non vintage champagne we had as an aperitif when visiting Tom Aikens restaurant in Chelsea. I had never had an Henriot Champagne before and really loved it; will probably do a report on this restaurant visit and the wines we had in a future blog. Suffice for now to say that it was an evening of total excess.

Coincidence of the month was having a Chilean Gewurtztraminer two nights in a row after never had one in my life before. Both were very pleasant but the star was the Aresti Estate 2006 Old Vines Gwurtztraminer – it paired some Thai food very well. I think I may have bought this at Waitrose because of a Jancis Robinson recommendation as I also did with the Priorat – well done Jancis!

Talking of Jancis Robinson, do get involved in her Wine Relief this month, which is part of Red Nose Day. We may be organising something – watch this space.

December Wine of the Month

There were a number of contenders for my favourite wine of the month and most were red wines this month. To become my wine of the month it normally has to be available in the UK and be below the fine wine type price tags – thus the superb Trimbach Cuvee Frederic Emile 2004 Riesling from Majestic didn’t get a look in at over £25 a bottle and nor did any of the very nice Bordeaux and Burgundies which we had bought in France. Nor did the M&S Priorat get the chance as they don’t have any 2006, any more (but you might consider the 2007 Bellmunt which is only £60 for a case of 6).

Runner-up was a very nice but too alcoholic wine from Marks and Spencers. It was a Gerard Bertrand 2008 Domaine des Garennes Minervois La Liviniere. A lovely bend of Syrah, Grenache and Carignan, but at 14.5% too powerful for me! So a much more reasonable 12.5% wine from the Northern Rhone – Les Hauts de Pavieres 2007 Crozes Hermitages got the vote instead. We got this in Waitrose in October and you may still find some on the shelves. If possible go for the 2007 rather than the 2008 and the former was such a good year in the Rhone. The wine is 100% Syrah (known as Shiraz elsewhere) and has that great Syrah pepperyness, is not too full bodied and has some blackberry fruit. It is a good food wine which would suit quite a variety of dishes. It is from the Cave de Tain, yet another good French cooperative wine – The wine is just under £10. For me so much better value than some of the big brand Shiraz from around the world

It was really good to find a good Southern French wine at under 13% alcohol.  With global warming etc it is a wine that bucks the trend towards increasingly alcoholic wines.