Riches of the Northern Côtes du Rhône

The northern Rhône valley is Syrah country. In this 70 km (43 mile) stretch of vineyards, reaching from Vienne to Valence, no other red grape is grown. On the sheer, mountainous inclines of the Côte Rôtie and Hermitage, where no mechanization is possible, the union of granitic soils and the Syrah grape produces massive, explosive wines; those of Cornas are not far behind in weight and in beauty. All are usually described as aggressive, hard, bitter, acrid, astringent. . . when young.

All of these unpleasant adjectives may apply; it is certain that these wines need a number of years to acquire good manners and longer for the aristocratic breeding to emerge. Four or five years after the vintage these wines are likely to be temporarily dumb, with only the hardness apparent. When still in the wood or within a couple of years after bottling, the freshness and density of the wild fruit and the intensity of the characteristic wine scent, defined as violets by the experts (I have never discovered it in the violets from my garden), mask the tannic presence; very young, after the first shock, a mouthful of Syrah dynamite is exhilarating.