2023 Northern Rhône Vintage

Across the Rhone Valley as a whole, a historically dry winter was followed by a particularly rainy spring, with some stormy episodes, especially in the northern part, sometimes accompanied by very localized hailstorms. Inter Rhone says the drought and a late summer heatwave did not affect the vineyards, which benefited from a large diurnal range, with cool nights letting the vines rest. In the northern crus, hailstorms, disease pressure, a heatwave and torrential rain in mid-September left the appellations not spared. Around 200 mm of rain fell in the middle of the harvest in mid-September; Cote-Rotie had milder weather that spared it, but the other northern crus struggled to organise their picking. Disease pressure was high: at Tain l'Hermitage, Guillaume Sorrel of domaine Marc Sorrel dropped up to 20 percent in some parcels, citing the rains, rot that arrived late, dried-out mildew and scalding. Ripeness was very uneven within the same parcel and even the same vine, with shrivelling at high degrees before the fruit was ripe; some growers who picked were left with unbalanced musts and ripening that had stalled at 10.5 to 11 degrees. Conditions were more chaotic in the North than in the South, leading to a shorter harvest. Sorrel had finished picking by the last Saturday before 2 October 2023, and his vines were so loaded that he reached the yield, a first since he took over the domaine five years earlier.

Inter Rhone's northern report opened with the line "after some worries came a lot of enthusiasm for very balanced wines". In Cote-Rotie, Marcel Guigal said: "This is why the result is all the more exceptional for AOC Cote-Rotie." He said he was fully satisfied on both quality and quantity. In Crozes-Hermitage, Yann Chave called 2023 promising in terms of quantity and, after multiple scares due to climatic hazards, very charming, with beautiful colours, adequate alcohol levels, excellent balance and a lot of finesse in the red wine tannins. In Saint-Peray, Lionel Fraisse recalled constant adapting to arduous weather, then a beautiful ripening period that led to an adequate crop volume with the freshness the terroir is known for. At domaine Guy Bernard, with 6.6 ha in Condrieu and Cote-Rotie, mildew was a fight all summer, and organic growers had heavy losses. Six treatments, three organic and three conventional, left not a single case of mildew on the bunches.

Inter Rhone framed 2023 across the whole valley as a vintage defined by its balance, with finesse and balance across the three colours. Some grapes brought in after the mid-September rains can show greater risks of rot and a mouldy, earthy taint, and there was no single trend from one grower to the next.