Richard C. Young on French Cote Roti

Shortly, Debbie I leave for another extended stay in Paris and French wine country. Our research will focus on our Paris Palace Hotels series, the Grand Cru red wines of Burgundy, and the “rare as hens’ teeth” Syrah reds from Northern Rhone Valley, including our top-ranked threesome–Cote Roti, Hermitage and Cornas. We will visit as many of Paris’ grand Palace Hotels as time allows and explore the availability of Burgundy Grand Cru and Rhone Valley Syrah.

In terms of general interest for French wine mavens: most of the red wine produced in the Rhone Valley is Grenache based, grown in the southern valley. The northern Rhone only produces 5%, and spread over a only eight appellations.

My four reference red Syrah wines (excluding huge and important Giugal) produce a grand total of 16,000 cases of wine annually. By comparison, Bordeaux produces perhaps 75 million cases per year (mostly $5/$15 table wine, as well as the annual allotment of hedge fund fodder).

Of the Cote Roti producers, I reference four limited outputs:

Jamet–75,00 cases,
Clusel-Roch–50,000 cases,
Rostaing–40,000 cases, and
Jamin–30,000 cases

I tend to be more grower-centric than vintage-centric. But given that, you may want to concentrate, if possible, on 2005, 2009, 2010 and 2015 vintages.

When you head out on your own Cote Roti research mission, remember that Cote Roti is not readily found. If you are lucky enough to find some, it certainly is not going to be budget priced. It is the norm for my own small American city of residence to not have a bottle of Cote Roti on shop shelves, or in our fine dining restaurants. Third-rung (my ratings) offerings Crozes-Hermitage and Saint Joseph are often available, but no Cote Roti and probably not my second rung players Hermitage and Cornas.

A votre santé …