Home | About Grapevine | Wedding and Party Service | Contact Us | Special Offers | FAQ's | Newsletter | Accessories and Gifts Rhône Valley A note about ageing the wines : Click here About the Region The Rhône valley - along with Burgundy and Bordeaux - is one of France's truly great wine regions, producing some of the country's most famous (and most expensive) wines. But great bargains can be found by those who know where to look.... Click here for more background on the region Principal Regional Grape Varieties - Red: Syrah;northern Rhône and southern Rhône blends, Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvèdre, - White : Viogner; Condrieu, northern Rhône, Marsanne; northern and southern Rhône, Roussane; northern and southern Rhône, Clairette, Click here for more grape varieties Click here for other Regions The Region If it were possible to follow the river Rhône along its full course from its source high in the Swiss Alps south of the city of Luzern to its mouth in the Mediterranean roughly halfway between Marseille and Montpellier, you would be embarking on extraordinary wine journey. The river flows west passing through the Swiss vineyards of the Valais, and then north-west into Lake Geneva. From there it turns south to run through the vineyards of French Savoie before turning west to merge with the river Saône at Lyons. From there it turns due south for the rest of its 400 km course to the sea. It is this on this last stretch ,between the old Roman city of Vienne and in the north and the city of Avignon in the south, that what are commonly referred to as Rhône wines are produced. 98% of these are either red or rose. The Rhône vineyards are split into two separate and very distinct parts. The northern part lies on a stretch of river about 70 km long between Vienne and Valence, while the southern part begins about 60 km south of Valence just south of Montélimar. The northern Rhône provides dramatic scenery. Here the river is narrow and the valley sides steep and high. The soil is basically granitic, giving the whole area a craggy, slightly forbidding look. The frequent lateral vallies allow the vines to benefit from the maximum exposure to the sun, as well as gaining all the heat they can from the reflection of the sun’s rays on both the water and the stony ground. These side vallies also provide shelter from the Mistral wind with its damaging chill factor which whistles down the valley from the mountains in the north. This is the home par excellence of the Syrah grape ( Shiraz in the New World). It is here that it reaches its finest (and most expensive) expression in great and famous wines such as Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie. It is possible, though, to seek out very good, modestly priced lesser wines. Typically, these wines are very dark, almost ink-coloured with a powerful bouquet of soft black fruit and black pepper with a wonderfully silky texture. There is also a tiny amount of expensive and delicious white wine produced at Condrieu from the Viognier grape, as well as some wine in some of the appellations made from a blend of the Marsanne and Roussanne grapes. The terroir of the southern Rhône represents a complete contrast. While the climate of the northern Rhône is still that of Central France, more akin to Beaujolais than the south, the southern Rhône’s climate is emphatically Mediterranean. The topography, too, is different, with the steep valley widening and easing as the river approaches the coastal plain. The soil changes as well, to pockets of sandy soil among rough, rocky scrubland. A further contrast to the north is in the volume of wine production, with the south being a massively productive area and the north having a very small output of high quality wines. The north produces only 5% of the total for the entire Rhône valley region. And while the northern Rhône produces single variety red wines (Syrah), the watchword in the south is the blend, usually with Grenache the senior partner in a long list of at least a dozen that includes Syrah, Cinsault and Mourvèdre for red and Roussane, Clairette and Ugni Blanc among others for white. Due the variety of blending possibilities presented by this long list of varieties it is harder to pinpoint a typical southern Rhône style which range from the light and fruity to the meaty and heavy in red, and spicy and herbal to heavy and ‘fat’ in white. There also a considerable amount of very quaffable rose made which is popular in the Provencal summers. The northern Rhône lies on a stretch of river about 70 km long between Vienne and Valence, while the southern Rhône begins about 60 km south of Valence just south of Montélimar, and stretches as far as Avignon. Back to top