Ep. 955 Map 8 Northern Rhone | Jumbo Shrimp Maps

Welcome to the Italian wine podcast. This episode is brought to you by Vinitally International Academy, announcing the twenty fourth of our Italian wine Ambassador courses to be held in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, from the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Are you up for the challenge of this demanding course? Do you wanna be the next Italian wine Ambassador? Learn more and apply now at viniti international dot com. Welcome to jumbo shrimp wine study maps. We have specially created this free content for all our listeners who are studying for wine exams. This has been a journey of development since Stevie Kim discovered Rosie Baker's hand drawn maps on Instagram through two years of work by our in house editorial and graphics team, and now the maps are available to purchase in beta form while they undergo the final briefing and editing by our expert advisory board. It's a three layered project because we know everyone learns differently. We now offer the complete box set of thirty nine maps. This series of podcasts with the maps narrated by our crack team of wine educators. And finally, the study guide book, which will be published later this year. Our map project is in no way a substitute for the materials set out by other educational organizations, but we hope all the wine students out there will find our map project a new, exciting, and useful tool for learning. For more information and to buy the maps, please visit our website at mama jumbo shrimp dot com. Welcome to the jumbo shrimp wine study maps podcast. This episode, we'll be looking at the Northern Roan map. Directly south of the beaujolais region in France, we find the start of the Roan Valley. Now the Roan is a very long valley that actually we split into two separate focuses, the northern Roan and the southern Roan. This is because actually, although they are in the same valley, the microclimates and the situations here are very different. First, let's focus on the northern road. It's a moderate continental climate here. And it's noticeably cooler than the southern rhone. Key factors to be considering when thinking about the northern rhone are that it has very steep slopes. So steep that the vines are individually staked rather than terraced, often on teepees, and they must be worked by hand. This also leads to problems with erosion and soil quality. Quite often at the end of the year, you will find people in the northern Rome, collecting the soil from the bottom of the slopes and redistributing it around the vineyards. The river is really important here as it helps to give heat. It bounces back heat and light into the vineyards, so many of the key areas are planted facing the river. Another issue is the mistral wind. We've already seen this a little bit in Burgundy, but here in the Northern Roan, the vines are protected from it by the valley itself. The Northern Roan area is so steep and difficult to grow grapes at times that it represents only around five percent of production of the Roan Valley. Therefore, ninety five percent of wine is actually coming from the south. Whilst there is a regional appolaci on here of Cote Dorone, which actually covers both the northern and southern Roan. The focus really in the northern Roan is the cruise of the Appalachian, so the specifically named villages. This is because it's difficult to grow grapes here, so really most of the grapes for Cote Dorone, regional appelacian, are actually grown in the south. A quick note on soils before we look at specific grape varieties, a lot of the soils here are a little bit based on granite. So again, they are hard infertile soils, which also gives some heat, which really aids ripening, which is key for the great variety that dominates here, which is sera. So sera is the only black great variety permitted in the Appalachian of the northern Rome. It's at the very northern limit of ripening here in the northern Rome. So it really needs slopes and heat in order to gain ripeness. Therefore, the best sites for wines made from Sierra here, the red wines, aren't those that are facing the river on these steep suddenly slopes. So facing into the sun, facing the river to gain as much heat and ripeness as possible. So these are grapes that are grown to produce powerful red wines with deep purple or ruby color, medium to high tannins, medium to high acid, and in most of the crews, you see enough intensity to allow for oak use. So softening some of the tannins with this slow oxygen contact and adding delicate spices. Really, it's up to the winemaker here to choose whether they use large, old oak just for that slow oxygen contact and softening of the wine. Really focusing on the development of the fruit profile, so moving from dark plum, blackberry, pepper slowly to licorice, dried plum, dried fruit, meat, and game, or perhaps using smaller newer oak to enhance the spices, so adding to that pepper with cinnamon nutmeg and clove. One practice that used to be quite common in the northern rhone, but is becoming less so is the co fermentation of syrup with the prestigious white grape from the region, vionne. This was done to improve the aromatics of syrup based wines and also to fix the color as vionne acts as a stabilizer. However, this is something we are seeing less And now it's just a focus on those hundred percent sera wines. In terms of white wines, vionne is the wine that is most renowned from the Northern Rome. It's perfumed aromatic, giving aromas of apricot, blossom, stone fruit does have an issue with losing acidity very quickly and gaining sugar very fast. Therefore, giving potentially lower acidity in the wines and higher alcohol levels. It's also a late ripening grape variety So to get the best from it, you need to leave it to hang for as long as possible, again, enhancing this potential issue with acidity and alcohol. Really the key to the Vionier wines in the Rome, is finding sites with this intense diurnal range. This intense shift between day night temperatures, which slows the ripening process down overnight, enhancing the complexity of the wine, and, of course, allowing for the maintenance of acidity. This is one of the few areas where you'll actually see oak use with an aromatic grape variety, really enhancing the powerful fruit flavors with this delicate spicing. Italian wine podcast. If you think you love wine as much as we do, then give us a like and a follow anywhere you get your pods. Vionier isn't the only white grape in the northern Rome, however, we also see Marsan and Rousian, two grape varieties that are often blended together in the white wines in the Northern Rome. Marsan really adding richness and weight to a blend, whereas Russo as acidity and a lovely perfumed stone fruited peach character. They are less aromatic than wines made from a hundred percent, but do develop complex aromas of honey, nuts, and dried fruits as they age. Now let's take a quick tour of the Appalachian that you need to know in the northern Rome have a little think about the style of the wines here. First up, in the very north, we have coat roti, the roasted slopes. Here, we have a focus on red wines. It's only red wines in this appelation, therefore wines from syrup. You might see a little bit of vigner added in the blend, infarmentation, but it's less likely. Here we have incredibly exposed slopes, providing deep color, full bodied, spicy peppery wines. With a real textual elegance that are very floral. Because this is a combination of heat from exposure and cooling influence from the diagonal shift, it's also quite often where we find strong pepper aromas that are aided by that cool temperature overnight. Next up, as we head south down the valley, is congea. This is the hundred percent Vionier appallación. It's steep terraces here. It's basically an amphitheatre of granite which provides rich, full bodied, very perfumed wines, lots of sun exposure and low yielding old vines. Within this Afelacian, you do need to be aware of Chateau Which is a single property with Apolacient Control a status. It's the most prestigious Vionier in the world with some of the greatest aging potential. Continuing our journey south, we have sang Joseff. Now this is most known for red wines of syrup. It's quite a large appalachian, so you can see some lighter bodied wines with a larger volume with some carbonic maceration. This technique that we find in beaujolais. These are quite often utilizing grapes from the fertile sites on the valley floor or this large plateau above the slopes. There are slopes that can be utilized here, but generally the wines of San Josezep tend to be the lighter bodied wines of the Northern Roan and more pepper and perfumed character. So they retain the pepper and perfume of coat root tea, but with lighter body in comparison. There are also incredible white wines here from these Marsan Russo blends. Next up as we head south, we actually have two Appalachian that are on the other side of the river. These are Crozermitage and Ermitage. It's really important for you to understand the distinction between these two. Very similar sounding names, very different styles of wine, and quite often questions will come up asking about the differences. For example, asking you to describe using the SAT approach to tasting a typical wine of hermitage in comparison to a typical wine of crosomitage. Let's start with crosomitage This is the bigger apronassian, really on the flatter planes here. There's more variation in quality, and we tend to have less expensive, simpler wines that are ready for drinking earlier. This is both the case for the reds and the white wines. Ermitage in comparison is a much, much smaller, aplacium. It's concentrated on steep south facing slopes around the town of Tan, and it is split into a whole series of small named sites. Although this is not actually part of the appalachian system, it's just fun to know. We have lots of steepness and aspect here providing full bodied rich concentrated wines with good tannic structure, good acidity suitable for long aging. They tend to have less pepper and perfume than the wines of Sanchez's f or cotero tea, but lots of licorice and developing these distinct meaty characters as they age. So really thinking about this variation between steep sites and power and body, expensive long lived wines of hermitage in comparison to the more higher volume, simpler, ready to drink younger, focus on black fruit, black brie, black cherry black plum of crowsarmitage. Don't forget the same comparison can also be made here for the white wines with the more concentrated age worthy in tenths wines often with oak use coming from hermitage, and the simpler easy to drink fresher wines coming from crows hermitage. Finally, to end our tour, we're back on the other side of the river in Cornas. This is the most southerly of the red wine crews, and it is only a red wine crew. Grapes here are syrup, and it must be made from one hundred percent syrup. They are deeply colored full bodied wines. Rich, powerful. And for me, what stands out is really, really smooth, ripe, full tannins. It's the warmest region, and it's well exposed, sunbaked, self facing slopes. So you do get this easy ripening of the tannins. Join me in the next episode as we talk about the Southern Roan. Thanks for listening to this episode of Italian wine podcast brought to you by Vineetli Academy. Home of the gold standard of Italian wine education. Do you want to be the next ambassador? Apply online at benito international dot com. For courses in London, Austria, and Hong Kong, the twenty seventh to the twenty ninth of July. Remember to subscribe and like Italian wine podcast and catch us on sound flat, Spotify, and wherever you get your pods. You can also find our entire back catalog of episodes at Italian wine podcast dot com. Hi, guys. I'm Joy Lemings Denon. I am the producer of the Italian wine podcast. Thank you for listening. We are the only wine podcast that has been doing a daily show since the pandemic began. 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