Wine Club Wine of the Month Tasting
Saturday, October 2, 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Featuring Gilles-Robin "Papillon" Crozes - Hermitage 2008
Syrah finds its home in the northern half of France's Rhone Valley. The grape also grows throughout the Rhone (where it plays a smaller but key role in the blends of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and most other wines), Languedoc and the rest of southern France as well as Australia (where it is called Shiraz), South Africa, South America and California. Each of these places contributes its own climate and style to the grape - which obviously tolerates, if not even embraces some seriously warm homes. In its warmest expression Syrah seems a little baked, with cooked fruit flavors, chocolate, lots of spice and sweet herbal characteristics. In cooler climates, rich blue fruits, floral notes and a distinctively black olive characteristic and sometimes gamey flavors shine.
In the Northern Rhone Valley, which represents one of the cooler locations for Syrah, the grape's ability to express and convey the place where it was grown really takes hold. There are five major red A.O.C.'s in the Northern Rhone, all of which produce wines made of Syrah and each appellation has a distinctive personality. The oldest and most famous is Hermitage, which is a hill that has been producing grapes for well over a millennia. Hermitage was once the most prized wine in the world, perhaps largely because of its reputation for extreme longevity. It is a wine that takes years if not decades to reach maturity and then ages gracefully for decades on top of that. Surrounding Hermitage is the A.O.C. of Crozes-Hermitage, a relatively flat land that also produces 100% Syrah wines. The styles of Hermitage and Crozes are very different and if one were seeking something of the Hermitage style in an earlier developing wine they would be better served to explore another village, St. Joseph.
Rounding out the Northern Rhone are two appellations on opposing ends of the aesthetic pole: Cote Rotie (or Roasted Slope, so called because of its unique exposure that catches just enough sun to ripen Syrah in this very cool party) makes wines softer, rounder character with a pretty little floral note often added by a touch of Viognier. Cornas, on the other hand, produces wines of extreme savory nature. Lots and lots of olive and bacon and smoke. So where does Crozes-Hermitage fall in this continuum of Syrah styles and why has it taken so long to get to the point?
Well, to be fair, Crozes-Hermitage has faced something of an identity crisis in the last couple of decades. Grapes grow more easily here than in other parts of the north and producers (mostly large negociants who rely on outside farmers for their product) have been all too tempted to make gluts of thin wines lacking distinction. They thought the wines would sell because of the name but as customers caught on, the name Crozes-Hermitage itself became one of the least respected in the Rhone. Fortunately, though there has been a real renaissance of smaller producers, including Gilles-Robin stepping into the area in the last several years who aim to make world class distinctive wines that these sights are capable of producing. So, to some degree, Crozes-Hermitage is in the process of reshaping its own identity.
It will never produce wines of the size, structure and power of its neighbor, Hermitage. And yet, lots of its historical proponents, the large negotiants who produce wines in all of the A.O.C.s of the north as many wines in the south sought to sell the product as if it were related to Hermitage. The key to Crozes-Hermitage's resurgence as a region will come from the inside as growers like Gilles-Robin branch out and make their own expressions of their vineyards.
Gilles-Robin left the cooperative of Cave Cooperative de Tain l'Hermitage in 1996 to start producing wines from their own property. Here we aren't talking about a producer who makes many cases of Crozes to sell alongside that many cases of Hermitage and, for good measure, an awful lot of Chateauneuf-du-Pape and Cotes-du-Rhone from grapes grown all over the region. With Gilles Robin we're seeing a new generation of producer who knows Crozes and produces Crozes. The effect is a truly honest, pure expression free of anxiety of influence caused by the neighboring giants of the Syrah world. The wine in the bottle is lighter and more direct than most Northern Rhone Syrahs. Gilles Robin doesn't use much wood and allow the grapes to speak for themselves. Expect lots of blue fruit character, violets and loads of pepper. Also, expect the wine to be more refreshing than the other Northern Rhone Syrahs due to its exuberant youthful character and great acidity.
-Barry Tunnell, Jp Wine Bar
