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Southern Rhône 2001

This vintage review, together with the associated pages of tasting notes, is the third in a trio of reports focusing on the wines of the Southern Rhône, previous instalments in this unofficial and certainly sporadic series having been 1998 and 2000. Both these preceding vintages were regarded as very successful at the time; the former was hailed as a great vintage in fact, the prime early evidence for this conclusion - should anyone dare to have questioned it - being generally regarded as the year's extremely hot weather. My recent assessment of 1998 - limited to just a dozen-or-so wines, I admit - demonstrated quite plainly the effect of such torrid temperatures, a number of the wines showing baked, raisined, pruney fruit. Moving on, the 2000 vintage was less marked by heat, but temperatures were certainly warm and favourable, the only glitch being some September rains. I found broader pleasure in these wines than I did in those from the 1998 vintage, principally because the fruit profiles were that much fresher. If any tastings have ever served to reinforce my understanding of my own palate and its stylistic preferences, and the importance of following your own taste and not that of prune-soup-loving critics (and I'm not saying it's not OK to enjoy prune-soup wines), it was these two.

The Southern Rhône appellations basked in the glory of these favourable vintages, the vignerons unaware at the time that they were entering what some no doubt regard as a golden era for the region, characterised by a string of warm if not baking-hot vintages (provided we can gingerly put the rain-sodden failure that was 2002 to one side). Bolstered by good weather and increased attention from consumers, fostered by the unwavering support of Robert Parker, the region has continued to go from strength to strength, and the prices of some wines in very recent vintages reflect this. But these more recent years, and the swirling hype that has surrounded the wines, are not our concern here today. It is the wines of 2001 that deserve our attention for the moment.

Weather and Wines

This far south the odds are stacked in your favour if looking for good weather, and 2001 was no exception. Yes, there are disasters such as 2002, when the vineyards were flooded with rainwater rather than tumbling rays of glorious sunshine, but by and large we can expect dry and warm summers here. Indeed, as I have already made clear in my introduction above, my greatest concern with the wines of the Southern Rhône is sur-maturité, the peculiarly unappealing flavour-profile obtained from over-ripe fruit when the grapes, having been left to bake in the summer heat, take on raisin and prune characteristics. In 2001 there was a typically hot and dry summer, but the vintage's saving grace - for the acid-lovers amongst us - was the cool and prolonged Mistral which wafted through the vineyards during August and September. Its effect was not only to thicken up the skins and to accentuate the body of tannins within, but also to help maintain acidity and freshness. This promised to be a vintage with all the substance of 1998, but perhaps with the more lively structure of a cooler year such as 1999.

The critics seemed to be writing in unison on the vintage; passing comment in 2003 Jancis Robinson said of 2001, "This vintage was really exceptional in the southern Rhône, by no means infallibly but generally offering expressive and charming wines". That same year, Châteauneuf-savant Robert Parker wrote of the 2001 vintage, "2001 is consistently excellent to outstanding in Châteauneuf du Pape, which produced full-bodied, dense ruby/purple-colored, powerful, tannic, chewy, pure wines". Outside this central appellation Parker was less enamoured with the wines, and he ranked the vintage behind 1998, but all the same it is clear that he found much that was positive, predicting that the finest wines of the vintage would be long-lived, and would need 2-4 years of cellaring to reveal their full potential.

An early but admittedly limited tasting of the wines, in March 2003, indeed revealed some with magnificent potential, particularly Beaucastel. But there were also good wines from the likes of Roger Sabon, and taking a look at the Languedoc at the same time both Mas de Daumas and Prieuré de St Jean de Bebian had turned in good performances. But that was many years ago now, and there must come a time for us to take another look. Nevertheless, preferring my wines with more maturity and harmony than fat and tannin, I elected to leave my next assessment of the vintage until 2010, when the wines have nearly nine years under their belts. (27/4/10)