Châteauneuf Vs. Côte-Rôtie? | Guide to Northern vs Southern Rhône Wines

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Watch my RHONE WINE VIDEO SERIES: • Guide to Châteauneuf-d...
Here on this channel, we look at ALL the best wine regions in the world so you get to know every one of them by their first name, and at the moment we’re looking at the Rhone Valley of France. We started this Rhone series last week with Chateauneuf du Pape, and we’re continuing today. From the small village of Chateauneuf, I want to take some altitude, give you a higher picture of the Rhone area. You may have heard that we divide the Rhone Valley into two distinct sub-areas that offer rather distinct wines too, the Northern Rhone, and the Southern Rhone. What is this all about? Let’s explain…
00:00 - North Vs South: Rhone Wine Intro
01:45 - What’s Northern Rhone About?
03:50 - Southern Rhone, the Valley Vineyards
06:30 - How are the wines different?
Top appellations in Northern Rhone are of course the Cote Rotie, Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Saint-Joseph and Cornas for the reds, and Condrieu, Chateau-Grillet and Saint-Peray for the whites. Hardly any rosé is made there, the reds you can produce are too good and precious to make rosés instead. Soils are quite rocky here, a lot of granitic soils mixed with stone, shingle and clay.
Top appellations by reputation here are Chateauneuf du Pape and neighboring villages of Vacqueyras, Gigondas and Lirac, Rasteau for sweet wines, or Beaumes-de-Venise, and Tavel for intensely colored and flavored rosés.
They key difference to understand, is that Northern Rhone wines are based solely on 1 grape variety, at least for reds, and that’s Syrah. Most Hermitage, Cote Rotie, St-Joseph etc are 100% Syrah wines, that’s easy to understand.
In the South though, virtually no wine is made from a single varietal, a varietal wine would be the exception there, and certainly not made from 100% Syrah. They would contain SOME Syrah, but as a small component in a blend. Southern Rhone wines are BLENDS, from mainly 4 grapes: Grenache, Syrah, Mouvèdre and sometimes Carignan, known as the Rhone blend or GSM blend or GSMC blend.
Grenache, Mourvedre and Carignan have a completely different texture to Syrah, their flavors are completely different as well, so they are very different wines.

[@oxvaldus]

Great great great video. I still remember when a French Air BNB host, opened a Saint Joseph wine, and blew my mind, I didn't expect that syrah could fly that high. And I'm drinking a CDR village wine right now, completely different, experiences but both super good 👍👍👍

[@alicealice281]

Hands down the best wine channel on RUclips! :) 👍

[@nigelt4257]

An excellent video containing so much interesting information. I'm a huge fan of Rhône wines, and, as you say, the two sub-regions differ hugely. The Rhône valley wine region is around 150 miles, north to south (Vienne to Avignon) but the terroir of the north is so different to that of the south. One thing you might have mentioned is that the ABV of southern Rhône reds is often higher than those from the north because Grenache grapes tend to ripen with more natural sugars than Syrah. I opened an amazing bottle of Condrieu just last week. "La Petite Cote", Yves Cuilleron a Chavany. Stunning! I have a 2019 Vacqueras to look forward to this weekend.

[@YourpainRx]

Great video!!! I have been drinking wine for a while but never put attention to so many details. Learning for sure. Love the E. Guigal Chateauneuf du Pope but I need to try the other line in the video. Thank you so much.

[@user-tw1jl7ki1o]

Love your your videos..I’m a wine seller located in Korea. You give me so much good information. Thank you for your hard work..

[@YouTubeJulien]

Thanks much for your kind words of support :) Appreciated!
I make wine videos for that other channel here you might want to check out too: ruclips.net/channel/UCSHHB3SBhaygeRxzTBV5kMA
as well as on my personal channel :) See you around the wonderful world of wine my friend 🙏😊🍷

[@SteelyTheVan]

Another great video! I thought I knew quite a lot about the Rhone valley and it’s differences - however you helped more fully clarify the key differences and I learned quite a bit from your overview. We have driven through several years ago but now I’m quite intrigued to go again. Thank you!

[@thomaskwok5279]

Excellent explanation! Good job 👏 👍

[@yfinla]

Informative yet clear and concise! And excellent topic!!!!

[@ErikOnEarth]

Excellent video!

[@carlcadregari7768]

Beautifully done. 👍👍🍷🍷👍👍

[@mindrules1566]

LOVE YOUR BEAUTIFUL VIDEOS 😍😘

[@VinnyKnuckles]

Better Call Saul

[@bobford7366]

replace your word choice 'varietal' with 'variety' and you're good to go!