TERROIR
THE FEATURE
Schist, Granite, and the Wine That Tastes Like a Mountain: How the Northern Rhône’s Soil Map Decides the Syrah
A small stream called the Fontgent runs down the hill above Ampuis, and it appears on no label. Yet the official rulebook for Côte-Rôtie maps the slope as two halves on either side of it: gneiss to the south, weathering into pale, sandy soil, and mica-schist to the north, breaking down into darker ground heavy with clay and iron. Growers call them the Côte Blonde and the Côte Brune, and the names describe the dirt before they describe the wine.
This week's article follows one grape, Syrah, through three appellations and three rocks. Hermitage is a fragment of granite the Rhône cut away from the Ardèche, its Syrah planted mostly on the granite western slope. Cornas, one commune on porphyritic granite, is the control case, and its wines carry what Decanter's Matt Walls calls serrated tannins. The rulebooks reach for geology before climate or cellar. So does the article.
THE DISPATCH
Latest from this week
Paid to Burn Their Wine, Rheinhessen's Growers Asked for Barely a Third
Rhineland-Palatinate's wine ministry said on 2 November that growers filed 266 applications to send 6.3 million liters of surplus red and rosé to EU-funded crisis distillation, about 36% of the 17.5 million liters the scheme could have paid for. The wine, from Rheinhessen, Germany's largest region, becomes industrial alcohol for disinfectant or energy. With many bulk sellers paid less than their costs, the shortfall suggests the surplus will not simply be burned away.
Vinexpo Asia Stops Moving: Hong Kong Hosts Every Year Through 2031
On 30 October the Hong Kong Tourism Board signed a memorandum making the city Vinexpo Asia's exclusive host for five straight years, 2027 to 2031, ending the fair's rotation with Singapore. Held there only every other year until now, the trade show turns annual from 8–10 June 2027, with tastings planned across the city. Bordeaux's deputy mayor and the Bordeaux wine council attended the signing.
THE PICK
CLOS DE LA ROILETTE FLEURIE CUVÉE CHRISTIE 2024
A Fleurie named for a racehorse. When the appellation lines were drawn, the clos was taken out of Moulin-à-Vent, next door, and placed in Fleurie. The owner, furious, put his horse Roilette on the label and, by the estate's importer's account, vowed not to sell a drop in France. Fernand Coudert bought the run-down estate in 1967 and replanted it; his son Alain joined in 1984 and has made the wine since.
Cuvée Christie, first made in 1998 as Cuvée Christal, is the estate's lighter wine, meant to be drunk young: all Gamay, 13% alcohol, and priced mid-shelf for a cru. Pour it slightly cool with a roast chicken, and look for the horse.
Until next Thursday,
Adrian, TERROIR