SOUTHERN RHONE 2019
Some winemakers I spoke to in the southern Rhône put the 2019s on a par with the stunning 2016s and 2010s. After tasting more than 1,300 wines across the region, I’m not sure I’d agree. In 2016 it was hard to find a bad wine; even indifferent winemakers had good wines thrust upon them by the perfect growing season. The 2019 vintage isn’t like that. There are many unbalanced wines, but it’s a vintage that presented talented vignerons with a window of opportunity; those with good terroir and the means to react quickly and judiciously have made some phenomenal wines. So I would not describe 2019 as a ‘great vintage’; it’s a vintage of localised greatness. In both the southern and the northern Rhône, the 2019s are a
