News from the Vineyard; Exploring Côte-Rôtie

A few thoughts on some of the most famed Syrah vineyards in the world…

by Raj Vaidya

April 26th, 2022

I had the opportunity to visit the Northern Rhône Valley last week along with Daniel and our friend, sommelier Matthew Conway, and after the visit to taste a full range of verticals at Clusel-Roch (see Daniel’s post from the last newsletter) I decided I wanted to spend a little more time exploring the wines and the terroir here.

The first matter that strikes one as they arrive in Ampuis is how extreme the slope of the hill is. Often rising up to a gradient of as much as 40%, this creates the sun exposure (thanks to the Southern aspect) that gives the appellation its moniker of the ‘roasted slope’. The picture below gives you some sense of the steepness from the bottom of Guigal’s La Turque vineyard.

It struck me that such steep terrain has a huge impact on viticultural techniques. For example, when vignerons are ploughing their soil to increase aeration and remove weeds, they have to be connected by wire to a winch system at the top of their vineyard so that they don’t tumble down the hill. This also has to be work done by hand, as there is no way of driving a tractor up (or down) the hill safely. It is likely for this reason that many farmers in the appellation do not practice organic farming, and prefer instead to use herbicides to manage the weeds. This of course causes poorly aerated soils and contribute to erosion of the already meager topsoil. There are some producers who are working organically though, and many more in conversion, which is a promising sign. You can see how Pierre Rostaing is reintroducing organic matter in his extremely steep Côte Brune vineyard.

Another feature to farming in these steep parcels is the frequent use of terracing to make the work easier (i.e. making it easier to stand and work in the vines.) You see this a lot in the southern section of the appellation, as illustrated below in pictures of the Tupin area.

In the coming weeks I’ll share a couple of additional thoughts about the region so be sure to check in on the newsletter next week to gain some further insight on farming in Côte Rôtie!