Rhone 2025 Tasting Report: Tracing the Roots of Change

The wines of the French Rhone Valley have been on the rise since the 1980s, and although many consumers have only recently discovered them, for plenty of others the orientation point remains the Rhone wines of the late 20th century. After my recent trip through the region with Tasting Manager Kevin Davy, where we tasted more than 950 wines, I can say with a high degree of certainty that that world of wine is almost extinct.

Today you need to watch out when buying Rhone wines, because few vintages feature homogeneous high quality that makes buying easy. In all the recent vintages it really helps to study tasting notes like those below.

The thing is, climate change is not a linear process, although many graphics showing its effects feature smooth curves. Winemakers everywhere on Planet Wine will tell you that what they experience is more like riding a roller coaster, and the 2023 vintage in the Rhone was definitely that.

Down in the dark and narrow cellars of Domaine A. Clape in Cornas in the Northern Rhone, Olivier Clape gave a deep dive into what happened during the previous years. “Really, the last five vintages were all extreme," he said. For him, the very wet years like 2021 and 2024 were no less challenging than the hot and dry ones.

“2024 was saved by the warm, dry August wind,” he commented. “But then we got a total of 100 millimeters of rain during the harvest period. I wanted to wait longer before picking, but a big storm was coming so we got a big crew and moved fast.” The still raw cask samples we tasted were surprisingly good.

2022 was almost the opposite, with only 100 millimeters of rain between vine bloom and the harvest, Clape explained. That resulted in the vines shutting down during high summer, meaning they stopped photosynthesis – the basis for the ripening process. That also reduced yields, and Clape produced the Cornas Renaissance 2022 as a result.

We love the powerful, concentrated Domaine A. Clape Cornas 2022 and its deep bass notes, and it has more than enough fruit and flesh to wrap around the imposing core of tannins. Like other top 2022s it is a big wine, but they don’t feature exaggeratedly high alcohol or low acidity. However, we found that less successful examples of the 2022 vintage can show these weaknesses, along simplistic ripe fruit aromas.

Our general impression is that the best 2023s are more elegant with brighter acidity, but from Olivier Clape’s description of the weather pattern it isn’t immediately obvious why.

“One thing that’s important about the vintage was the big heat in August,” Clape said. “For 10 days it was around 40 degrees Celsius [104 Fahrenheit]. Then came the big rain of Aug. 25.”

A few days earlier, Thierry Sabon of Clos du Mont Olivet in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, far to the south of Cornas, said something that we think is the key to understanding 2023: “Because of the rain before the harvest, 2023 doesn’t have the taste profile of a hot dry vintage.”

The Clos du Mont Olivet Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Cuvée du Papet 2023 is a stunning example of how the wines of this vintage can marry power and velvety tannins with excellent freshness.

Benjamin Gras of Domaine Santa Duc in Gigondas went further back in tracing the roots of 2023’s more elegant personality. “The big difference between ’22 and ’23,” he said, “is that in ’23 we had a very dry spring and the vines adapted to the drought before the summer heat arrived.”

It certainly helped him make an extraordinary quartet of Chateauneuf-du-Pape reds. He is now a major producer of Chateauneuf, having recently increased his holdings there from six to 10 hectares. The Domaine Santa Duc Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Crau Ouest 2023 and Domaine Santa Duc Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Saintes Vierges 2023 are masterpieces of precision and vitality.

The new climatic situation is a fundamentally warm and dry one, with two or three cool and moist years per decade. However, the weather often flip-flops back and forth between drought and heavy rain within one growing season, as was the case in 2023.

How individual producers react to these extremes is crucial. However, long-term soil management practices – over a time frame of five years to a decade or more – is important, too, because it massively influences water retention in the soil. And that, in turn, determines how well the vines come through droughts.

The prime consequence of the new climate situation for the wines in the bottle is the higher alcoholic content, something we’ve commented on before, but after our Rhone trip we’re also convinced that nobody can accurately predict whether a wine will be balanced or not from the alcoholic content printed on the label.

For example, it is entirely possible that a red Chateauneuf-du-Pape with 15.5 percent alcohol might be beautifully balanced, but one with 14 percent (now rare) on the label may not be. How they taste depends on how well the vineyards were cultivated, the picking date and winemaking.

15.5 percent alcohol on the label has become common for Chateauneuf-du-Pape, the oldest and most famous appellation in the Southern Rhone. In the warm 2023 and 2022 vintages, this was particularly obvious. Of course, that begs the question of who actually wants to drink a red wine with 15.5 percent. And if you don’t mind that, how many glasses could you manage?

The explanation is a combination of climate change and the genetic make of grenache vine variety that accounts of about two-thirds of the 3,200 hectares of vineyards there. One French wine scientist has described grenache as “a factory that manufactures sugar.”

The strategies for dealing with challenge are diverse. Many winemakers told us that they focus on the tannins and not the alcoholic content, since it is primarily healthy tannins that balance the alcohol in Southern Rhone reds.

READ MORE BORDEAUX EN PRIMEUR 2024 TASTING REPORT: SHIMMERS OF LIGHT IN A ‘NIGHTMARE’ VINTAGE

The approach of Chateau de Beaucastel in Chateauneuf-du-Pape is based on the Perrin family’s traditional commitment to the mourvedre grape, which makes up around 30 percent of the cuvee with roughly equal importance to grenache. In the 2023 vintage, the Perrins conjured sensational tannins from the mourvedre grape and this resulted in what may be the finest wines this legendary property has produced in modern times.

The Château de Beaucastel Châteauneuf-du-Pape Hommage à Jacques Perrin 2023 is a perfect expression of this appellation and gives you all the forest berry aromas you could want plus cassis and licorice. The incredible balance makes the finish feel almost weightless in spite of the titanic concentration. And all this is at 14.5 percent alcohol.

Another strategy that is beginning to gain traction in the region is to increase the proportion of the counoise grape in the cuvee. Eighteen grape varieties are approved for the production of Chateauneuf du Pape, and a wine can be a blend of any combination of them or a pure varietal. Counoise is the red grape that tends to have the lowest alcoholic content, sometimes as low as 12.5 percent and rarely much more than 13 percent.

Florent Lancon of Domaine de la Solitude produces the most exciting Counoise-based red wine in the appellation, the Vin de la Solitude. It is an attempt to recreate the wine of that name, which was the first Chateauneuf-du-Pape to be widely exported at the very end of the 18th century and first years of the 20th century.

The Domaine de la Solitude Châteauneuf-du-Pape Vin de la Solitude 2022 is incredibly subtle and elegant with a cornucopia of gingerbread, dried cherry, bitter chocolate and wild herb aromas. We are convinced that the 20 percent counoise in the blend is decisive for this unique wine.

Clairette blanche and clairette rose are emerging as the white equivalents of counoise. For example, the stunning Domaine Charvin Châteauneuf-du-Pape Blanc 2024 is almost pure clairette rose and we love its supple and silky personality, plus the aromas of dried lemons, almond paste and white flowers.

“We were delighted to discover that with Clairette we could reach full aromatic maturity of the grape and only have around 13 percent alcohol,” said Laurent Charvin, the sixth generation to run the family estate. The wine is vinified in clay pots and bottled early in the year after the harvest. It is almost as amazing as his legendary red Chateuneuf-du-Pape

The same can be said about the Famille Isabel Ferrando Châteauneuf-du- Blanc Saint Préfert Cuvée Spéciale Vieilles Clairettes 2023, which marries textural complexity with an intense minerality rare in the whites of this appellation. It is a cuvee of the white and rose-colored versions of the Clairette grape.

We must conclude by returning to the North, where we started, because a number of wines made Kevin and my jaws drop. It’s a good question which of these high points stands out most.

At Maison Stephan in Cote-Rotie, we tasted what are arguably the best natural wines in all of France. We recommend doubters to try the Maison Stephan Coteau du Tupin 2022, which is astonishingly graceful for a red with this huge concentration. And the alcohol level here is just 13.5 percent!

Just down the road, Stephane Ogier showed us his best-ever collection of single-vineyard Cote-Roties. The very deeply structured and scented Stephane Ogier Côte-Rôtie La Belle Hélène 2022 was unforgettable.

The mighty hill of Hermitage also shined once more. Both the red M. Chapoutier Ermitage L’Ermite 2022 and the white M. Chapoutier Ermitage Blanc De L’Orée 2022 are amazingly mineral expressions of this great terroir, with crystalline purity. And these are the twin pinnacles of an amazing collection of wines from appellations right across the region.

I first visited the beautiful new cellar of Delas in Tain l’Hermitage in early 2022, but now the combination of it and the winemaking team of Jacques Grange and Marco Beckmann is really coming into play. The Delas Hermitage Lieu Dit Ligne de Crête Les Grande Vignes 2023 is a masterpiece of purity and wild herb freshness. This and the great mineral energy at the finish make it the best wine of modern times at this famous house.

The 2023 vintage confirms that Guillaume Sorrel is now the master of Hermitage finesse. Both the white Domaine Marc Sorrel Hermitage Blanc Les Rocoules 2023 and the Hermitage Le Gréal 2023 are perfect examples of the appellation. The controlled dried citrus bitterness of the former is married to a silky, seamless texture. The latter made me wonder where the abundant alcohol and tannins that this unique wine must have are hidden.

And finally, there was another moment of revelation in a humble stone-walled cellar in Cornas. It was our first visit to Thierry Allemand since the Covid crisis, and what a reward there was for our patience. The Thierry Allemand Cornas R 2022 has the enormous stature we expect from this appellation, but the finish is as graceful as a dancer who leaps effortlessly from one side of the stage to the other.

Yes, you need to be selective, but if you are the Rhone offers a wealth of wines with breathtaking beauty.

– Stuart Pigott, Senior Editor

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the tasters at JamesSuckling.com. Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.