Last week, I spent some time in the Northern Rhône. Later this summer, The New Wine Review will publish my longer article about it. For now, though, some jottings from the notebook (and the backs of a few Syrah-stained napkins): 

• I’ll have lots more to say about this in said forthcoming article, but the major upside surprises of the trip were two producers whose wines I hadn’t yet spent much time with: Jean-François Malsert of Domaine de l’Iserand in Saint-Joseph, and Emmanuelle Verset of Domaine A. and E. Verset in Cornas. (The latter, as veteran Northern Rhône nerds know, is a descendant of one of the appellation’s most important families.) 
• While I’ve always liked Matthieu Barret’s wines very much, an extensive tasting of his lineup (which contains many more cuvées than Americans ever see on these shores; please, someone, do something about this) convinced me he’s a benchmark producer for the region. 
• The 2014 Northern Rhône vintage did not get much love from major wine critics. But I was struck by how many winemakers really liked the vintage. A Matthieu Barret 2014 “Ogre” Cornas sampled in Paris proves their point—a marriage of Cornas typicity of brambly and savory notes, with pinpoint purity and incredible finesse. It was a wine both joyful and profound. 
• While the Northern Rhône escaped the outright destructive weather that pummeled Chablis and parts of Germany this year, so far the 2024 growing season has been cold, cloudy, and extremely rainy. Pierre-Marie Clape, the retired winemaker at perhaps the village’s most iconic producer, said that virtually an average year’s entire rainfall had drenched his vineyards by the end of May. Let’s just say that winemakers there aren’t loving this vintage so far. The sun, and some heat, finally appeared in early June. We’ll see where it goes from here. 
• A very, very good place to dine in Valence—which is close to Cornas and Saint-Joseph—is André, the bistro offshoot of Anne-Sophie Pic’s three-Michelin-starred Maison Pic. A very, very good place to dine in Vienne—which is close to Côte Rôtie—is L’Espace PH3, the more casual offshoot of Patrick Henriroux’s two-Michelin-starred La Pyramide. Both have, as you’d expect, absolutely bonkers wine lists—in particular for Champagne, Burgundy, and, of course, the Northern Rhône—and the pricing on both wine lists will make those accustomed to U.S. prices weep tears of joy. 
• Not exactly news—and arguably I’m biased, because I’m talking about one of my favorite domaines anywhere—but the consistent level of finesse, harmony, and purity that Domaine Gonon coaxes from its holdings in Saint-Joseph is really astonishing. These wines excel year in and year out, while clearly communicating the gestalt of any given vintage. I’ll continue to nurse hopes of someday tracking down a bottle of Gonon’s impossible-to-find Vielles Vignes Saint-Joseph for less than, I dunno, the price of a used car. (The price of a cheap used car. But still.)
• Also not exactly news, but tasting barrel samples of wines vinified from individual parcels in Cornas’s renowned Reynard vineyard is a reliably delicious experience, and an incredibly vivid demonstration of terroir. 
• Some people don’t care for Syrah. These people have one thing in common: they have never tasted a bottle of 2013 Chave Hermitage. 
• It is really annoying when someone states that everyone has to do this or that, and then the this or the that turns out to be something that flagrantly flaunts that someone’s privileged access. But: anyone seriously interested in this region should try very, very hard—like bucket list-level trying hard—to taste the barrel components of Clape Cornas before they’re blended. We obsess over single-vineyard expressions (and rightly so), but this demonstration of both the distinct variances of Cornas terroir and a veteran domaine’s skill in bringing them all together is a singular experience.  
• Loved this bit of intra-regional shade from the extremely down-to-earth Agnes Levet of Vignobles Levet, longstanding benchmark producers of intensely structured and uncompromisingly correct Côte-Rôties: “When you taste [Syrah] from the South—it’s too hot.” And all the more when she went on to say she’d enjoyed some “interesting” examples of South African Syrah. Take that, Southern Rhône!