Northern Rhône: The Finest Syrah in the World

Hello,

There is a smell that only Syrah from the northern Rhône has:
Pepper, violets, smoke.
As if someone had smoked early autumn over beechwood, with bay leaf and black olive.
Twelve and a half per cent.
Tannins, polished and beautiful.
You drink it in October, with lamb, with mushrooms, with the new Carrère.
It becomes clear why people there toiled to cut terraces into slopes too steep for any tractor.
I know of no other red wine that is so light and so serious at the same time.

Three growers make exactly this kind of Syrah: Matthieu Barret in Cornas, David Reynaud in Crozes-Hermitage and Jean-Michel Stephan in Tupin, where the Côte-Rôtie begins.
This letter follows the Rhône upstream, from south to north. You can come along on the journey with a case of your choice:

Case 1 · Upriver

Cornas · Crozes · Saint-Joseph 350m · Saint-Joseph D86 · Grand Blanc · Côte-Rôtie

Case 2 · Right at the Top

Cornas 2017 · Condrieu · Tupin 2020 · Bassenon 2022 · Binardes 2022 · L’Ultime 2021

Only a few thousand bottles of these wines are made each year. For the whole world.

One click adds all six to your basket.
You can remove or swap individual bottles there, including between the two cases.

Cornas

Cornas is Celtic for burnt earth, or so they say. An amphitheatre of granite across the river from Valence, open to the south, sheltered from the mistral. Cornas used to be known as a wine you bought to leave to your children, which is to say undrinkable in its youth. Matthieu Barret took over the estate in 1998, aged twenty-three, from his grandfather, who had sold the grapes to Chapoutier and Delas. It has been Demeter-certified since 2002. Mules and horses pull the plough through the terraces, thirteen hectares of crumbling granite that people here call Gore. In 2017 he threw every wooden cask out of the cellar. Since then it has been steel, concrete and terracotta only. And he destems, which is highly unusual in Cornas, where the tradition is to ferment with the stems. The result is a Cornas you do not have to bequeath. Wine Spectator called Barret one of the most exciting new estates in the northern Rhône, and The Wine Advocate gives his great Cornas 96 and 97 points. His New York importer calls them the most sought-after French natural wines you can still afford.

Crozes-Hermitage, the plain

Crozes-Hermitage is what is left of Hermitage once you take away the hill. Eleven communes, more than two thousand hectares, the largest appellation in the north. And the least understood, because half the harvest goes to the co-operative in Tain, so the label gives little away. David Reynaud left the co-operative in 2000. What he had in mind was biodynamics, certified by Biodyvin since 2005. His estate lies in the flat south, on the banks of the Isère, on the Plateau des Chassis. Clay and limestone over river stones that store the warmth by day and give it back to the vines at night. Twenty-seven hectares, eighty-seven per cent Syrah, and a cellar where only gravity does the pumping. What I like about Reynaud is that he does not apologise for the plain. Nor does he need to. JancisRobinson.com called even his most basic Crozes “pure and delightful”, with astonishing concentration. Crozes has many producers and a handful you need to know. Reynaud is one of them.

Saint-Joseph, fifty kilometres

Saint-Joseph is less a site than a ribbon fifty kilometres long on the right bank, from opposite Valence to just short of Condrieu. In 1969 it was under a hundred hectares. Today it is fifteen hundred. So the name on the label tells you less than the name beneath it. Both ends of the ribbon are in the case: Reynaud’s granite plateau at three hundred and fifty metres, and Barret’s parcels on the D86 road near Sarras, at the upper edge of the appellation.

Vérin, on the edge of Condrieu

Jean-Michel Stephan planted his first hectare at fourteen. He learned his trade in the Beaujolais, under Jean-Paul Brun. That explains why his Côte-Rôtie is fermented with whole bunches, like a Morgon. He founded his estate in Tupin in 1991, and in 1997 he met Yvon Métras and Marcel Lapierre. Since then, next to no sulphur, at any stage. Nobody in the Côte-Rôtie had dared to do that before him. His American importer calls him one of the true masters of natural wine in the northern Rhône, and for once an importer is not exaggerating. His Côte-Rôties are the most sought-after in the appellation, according to Idealwine. Five hectares of Côte-Rôtie, half the usual yields, so very little wine. You will find these wines on the best wine lists in Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo. We have had every vintage of his since 2018, which I do not take for granted. His sons Romain and Dorian work alongside him. Two hectares have become ten, half of them outside the appellation, in Vérin and around Condrieu, at four hundred metres. That is where the two whites come from.

Tupin: one slope, two wines

This is the slope I spoke of at the start. The Côte-Rôtie begins at Tupin-et-Semons, at its southern end, on gneiss rather than mica schist. The legend of the Côte Brune and the Côte Blonde belongs further north. What you find here instead is Sérine, the old form of Syrah, with smaller berries and half the yield. The nurseries, with their clones, very nearly wiped it out. Stephan found it in Tupin in 1991, vines dating from 1941. On the same slope Matthieu Barret picks his Côte-Rôtie grapes, in partnership with Stephan. Same place, two signatures: Barret destems and ages the wine for fifteen months in concrete eggs. Stephan ferments whole bunches and leaves the wine for two years in old casks of Jupille oak. You can buy both and taste the difference for yourself. That, to be honest, is the reason for this case.

Bassenon, Binardes, and a year of frost

Stephan’s two other sites. Les Binardes lies directly behind the cellar, two hectares on a forty per cent gradient. From there he takes the quartz that he grinds and sprays over the vines as a horn silica preparation. Bassenon lies on the border with Condrieu, dark migmatite, the oldest vines dating from 1896. For me it is the great wine of the house. And then April 2021: minus seven degrees, a tiny harvest. Stephan put all his sites into one cuvée and called it L’Ultime. Let us hope the name remains an exaggeration.

What to open first?

When you open the case: the Grand Blanc first, well chilled. Then the D86 and the 350m, both at sixteen degrees, no warmer. Syrah does not forgive warmth. Open Les Croix and Brise Cailloux an hour before serving. The Tupin’s last, in a large glass.

Upriver:
1× Le Grand Blanc 2024 → camomile and oyster shell
1× Saint-Joseph D86 2024 → twelve per cent, bay and olive
1× Saint-Joseph 350m 2021 → crushed berries, six grams of acidity
1× Crozes Les Croix 2022 → thyme, bay, smoked meat
1× Cornas Brise Cailloux 2022 → plum, violet, pepper
1× Côte-Rôtie Tupin’s 2023 → raspberry, cassis, Penja pepper

And “Right at the Top”: the Condrieu, Stephan’s three single sites, L’Ultime and the nine-year-old Cornas. Start with the Cornas. It is the only one that is ready to drink.

Upriver 6 wines · approx. €251 →

Right at the Top 5 wines + Condrieu 0.5 l · approx. €708 →

One click adds all six to your basket. You can remove or swap individual bottles there.

Warm regards from Berlin,

Lisa and the
Living Wines team

P.S. We still have magnums of Barret’s Cornas “Gore” 2015, which I put down to an oversight by the market. Gore is the word for that crumbling granite. The vines, fifty years old, stand at the very top, on the Sommet des Arlettes. The wine spent two years in concrete eggs with ten milligrams of sulphur. The Wine Advocate gave it 97 points: crushed stone, raspberry, cassis. A magnum ages more slowly than a standard bottle, and this one has until 2033. The present for someone who has everything, except Cornas. Approx. €259.

Upriver 6 wines · approx. €251 →

Right at the Top 5 wines + Condrieu 0.5 l · approx. €708 →