navigating the northern rhone
Edouard Bourgeois
June 7, 2024
I spent a couple days in the Rhone and visited a few producers in various appellations. mostly tasting 2022 and 2023s. Below are a few notes I gathered.
Domaine A et E Verset
After endless rainy days, if not weeks, the warm June sun emerged suddenly on Tuesday June 4th while I picked up my suitcase to leave Valence- direction Emmanuelle Verset in Cornas. Emmanuelle’s bubbly energy is found in her wines. This is a nice time of the year to visit as you get to taste two vintages from barrels. In this case, 2022 and 2023. 2022 was another hot year but Emmanuelle’s Syrah fared beautifully, with freshness she attributes to her whole cluster fermentation strict policy. Emmanuelle’s great uncle was Noel Verset and although she is proud of this heritage. She is on a mission to dust off the image of Cornas, often associated with rusticity. Her farming is also a model of regenerative agriculture where cover crop (every two rows one year, and every two other rows the next year) consists of plantings of strawberry, clover or rye to fight erosion. I am usually not seeking white wines from the Rhône but I was really pleased with Verset’s Saint-Peray. This pure Marsanne was very aromatic and peachy but not heavy. Even her Vin de France Viognier was feather light and refined, and being from the hot 2022 vintage, that is quite impressive! Verset produces different Cornas, including her top cuvee she calls “Signature” and typically 100% from the great lieu dit of La Geynale. However, Geynale doesn’t appear on the label since she wants to give herself the option to blend in some fruit from Champelrose, the lieu dit she inherited from Noel Verset and located on flat terrain at the foot of Geynale.
An old sign from the 1980’s at Verset’s
Domaine Pierre Gonon
It is my second time visiting Jean Gonon, the undisputed champion of Saint-Joseph. What a treat. I never had a bad bottle of Gonon. Old or young, the wines always amaze me. Sure, the vintage leaves its mark but the house signature embellishes any rough angles a difficult year may bring. One element that contributes to explain this finesse and consistency is the use of Massale selection instead of clones. Jean explained that the latter tend to over ripen in recent hot years. We started the tasting with Iles Feray (a vin de France from young vines planted on flat land) from 2022. Always a treat but with less complexity than his Saint Joseph. Note: Gonon is known for using whole cluster but 50% of the fruit is destemmed in Iles Feray. M. Gonon then generously opened Saint Joseph 2021, a cold vintage with great finesse and no vegetal note whatsoever. We moved to Saint Joseph 2016, a cooler vintage that was delicious and Saint Joseph 2012, more delicate because the grape skins were thinner that year. After the reds, Jean poured his Chasselas. In the past, I was not moved by this wine but the 2022 we tasted was quite impressive. The Chasselas is a grape variety known for its use as table wine, since it is very aromatic and juicy. The fruit comes from a plot once owned and farmed by another legend, Raymond Trollat. Back then, M.Trollat used to blend the fruit with the Syrah in his Saint-Joseph, against the regulation of the appellation…
The serene atmosphere of Jean Gonon’s cellar
Domaine de l’Iserand
After a frightening climb in our underpowered Renault SUV up the hill of Saint Joseph, we made it to the top and were greeted by Jean-Francois Malsert (he goes by Jeff) with his piercing green eyes and Yankees hat. We immediately jumped in the back of his beat-up Land Rover from another era and he drove us with the confidence and agility of a mountain goat to his nearby vineyard. It is important to remind the reader that Saint Joseph is a very long appellation that stretches from north to south. However, the vineyards in the north were added later in the 1970’s. The initial appellation area to the south is considered to be the best one, with steep hillsides overlooking the Rhone and rich with Granit. This is where Domaine de l’Iserand grows its Syrah at the highest altitude permitted by the appellation, on sand and gneiss as well as Granit. Interestingly, in 2021, he had to declassify some of his Saint Joseph to Vin de France because it was too high in altitude at 480 meters while the limit for Saint Joseph is 460! The cuvee is now called “décanonisé” a reference to the pope being de-canonized (no longer a saint!) Reds are fermented whole cluster style here and Jeff likes to use a combination of Spanish Amphorae and barrels (one of them colorfully decorated) Jeff explains that his life is mostly in the vineyard and he went on a long explanation to explain his grafting technique. His mules, used to plough, are what he is the most proud of and they even became the staple of all his wine labels. I don’t have detailed tasting notes but the wines were juicy and delicious. Funky labels like those of Domaine de l’Iserand can be off-putting and might suggest mousy, weird natty wine but make no mistake here, everything I tasted was clean and pure, even with teeny tiny doses of SO2. I was totally charmed by his pet nat’ rosé. A curiosity made with the grape Dureza (a parent of Syrah) fermented just once and roughly disgorged for a final juice bomb at 11% ABV. I couldn’t spit this one! Too bad it doesn’t make it to the US.
The best way to get to the vines
Matthieu Barret
Don’t judge a book by its cover! I now understand the idea behind the playful labels of Barret and his Domaine du Coulet. Matthieu is a jovial and generous man who produces twenty-two different cuvees, as well as a marc, different orange wines and even vinegar (the only product at the winery that spends time in oak!). Sparkling wine is not produced but of course, he’s thinking about it.
Matthieu is the largest land owner of Cornas with eleven hectares and that is great news because his work for the appellation is tremendous and just like Emmanuelle Verset or Jeff of Domaine de l’Iserand up north, these creative young guns bring nice, fresh energy to the region. As Matthieu explains, he makes wine to drink and he likes to define himself as a winemaker in constant movement, inspired to create a special cuvée each year, fun stuff! Most of Barret’s wines are affordable, full of life, juicy and incredibly fresh. Who said Cornas was rustic? His 2022 was incredibly fresh with a snap. Biodynamic, his farming uses Massale selection and Matthieu does not believe in phenolic maturity, certainly the first time I heard a winemaker say that! Instead, when the potential alcohol reaches 12.5%, he sends his pickers for a swift harvest. Another thing that surprised me is that most grapes are destemmed.
The bear on the wine labels makes so much sense now!
Domaine Clape
One of the most famous producers of Cornas and certainly an example of one might call traditional, the Clape family farms nine hectares and has been bottling under their own name since the 1969 vintage, although the first wines were made in 1956. It started with Auguste, then his son Pierre-Marie, who received us, and now Olivier, (Pierre-Marie’s son). The cellar felt like a cave from ancient times. Tasting through the 2023 out of casks, I noticed high volumes of volatile acidity in some of the wines, which didn’t seem to worry Pierre-Marie at all. I have been lucky to taste older vintages from Clape and I am guessing the wines find their balance overtime and shake off this V.A sharpness (I had a fantastic bottle of 1992 not long ago) At Clape, the juice ferments in cement and always in whole bunches.
Pierre-Marie Clape, a gentleman full of wisdom
