Product information

Yves Cuilleron Côte-Rotie ‘Bassenon’ 2019

Shiraz Viognier from Côte-Rôtie, Northern Rhône, Rhône Valley, France

$164

$157ea in any 3+
$150ea in any 6+
Closure: Cork
A fine silky mouthfeel with a perfume from excellent Viognier!

Description

Needing time to reveal itself. A fine silky mouthfeel with a perfume from excellent Viognier, spicer, just a pinch of pepper. Darker and red fruits at play. Just a little mid palate grip and superb shape. Plush, with that Shiraz viognier phenolics and generous yet thirst quenching. 2019 is showing it’s hand as a wonderful year across much of Europe. A little woody herbs. Red licorice, red currents, fresh ripe apricot, baking spices and an almost creamy feel to it with a fresh acid profile. Beautifully weighted. Grab this. The home of Shiraz Viognier shows its form and beautiful so. Feminine with attitude of the right kind!

Grab one of each and a bottle of Cuilleron’s 100% Viognier white wine from Condrieu ‘Les Chaillets’ and you’ll be able to explore see the Viognier component in the ‘Baseron’, how it adds a perfume and the texture changes compared with the 100% Syrah ‘Madinere’.

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Check out all of the wines by Yves Cuilleron

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

About Yves Cuilleron

Yves Cuilleron represents the 4th generation of Cuilleron vignerons even though he started his career as a mechanic. He caught the wine bug when he did is military service in Alsace and after a year’s training at Lycée Viticole de Mâcon, Yves took over his uncle estate in 1987. Since then he has built an entirely new winery in Chavanay and acquired additional vineyard in St. Joseph, Côte Rôtie and Condrieu. Yves is also very implicated in the community: he set up the ‘Vins de Vienne’ in 1996 with Pierre Gaillard and Herve Villard to re-introduce vines on the forgotten terroir of Seyssuel (located a few kilometres north of Vienne).’

The top Cuilleron wines are planted 8000-10000 vines per hectare. There are no insecticides (for the last 20 years) or herbicides used in the vineyards. Yves Cuilleron rejects off-the-shelf ideas. His vision of vine cultivation is highly personal: not conventional, not organic, not biodynamic. And his philosophy is simple: “Produce the best possible grapes”. He practises “viticulture raisonnable”, an integrated, eco-friendly approach in which observation is key. All vine work vital to grape quality is conducted: planting of Viognier vines deriving solely from the family’s own yards (“selections massales”), and of Syrah vines from high-quality clones and from “selections massales”.

 

A Viognier Primer

The Viognier vines from Yarra Yering made their way from Château Grillet. I devoured my last bottle of 2001 YY Viognier at 16 years of ages a few months ago. We’d bottled it with sulphur levels on the high side, it had maintained the colour of a 5 year old wine, the straw character of aged Viognier was showing, and the colleague I was tasting it with saw notes reminding her of Château Grillet! Only 200L of this wine were made, and only when there was sufficient fruit to avoid detracting from the No.2 Shiraz Viognier and friends. Studying the Viogniers of Condrieu and Château Grillet was always a pleasure.

Studying the Viogniers of Condrieu and Château Grillet is always a pleasure. It’s a curious beast, often drinking beuatifully for a few years, going into a hole for 5-10 and then bouncing back with a new level of secondary, age related characters. Good Viognier has a heady perfrume, apricot, peach, spice, ginger, jasmine, flowers, citrus and beyond often used to describe it.

I first visited Yves Cuilleron back in 1999, primarily seeking his whites, soon discovering he made reds of great personality too. Beyond his stunning Condrieu he maintains holdings in Saint Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, Cornas and Côte Rotie. Making Rousanne, Marsanne, Marsanne/Rousanne blends, Syrah and Syrah blended with a splash of Viognier. Côte Rotie was the inspiration for Yarra Yering Dry Red No 2 and in turn Clonkilla’s Shiraz Viognier!

In Australia we tend to see Viognier in blends co-fermented with Shiraz where it’s adds wonderful perfume, and texture to red wines like Yarray Yering’s Dry Red No.2,  Clonakilla’s, and, Serrat’s Shiraz Viognier.

As a white wine the spectrum of styles it can make is extreme. Guigal make to of the boldest version with the Cuvées ‘La Doriane’ and the incredibly rare dessert wine ‘Luminescence’. La Doriane breaks all the rules. I used 20ml of a bottle to analyse it.

The pH was 4.0 the titratable acidity 4.0. Normally you’d expect a white wine to have a pH 3.0 & 3.5 with a titratable acidity between 5.5-7g/L acid. This is were the extreme of texture comes to play the high pH and low acidity, combine with the high level of phenolics in La Doriane give it an oily, almost unctuous,  yet still dry texture. The high pH renders any sulphur additions near useless, the fruit must have incredible depth and length of flavour, capacity to handly oxygen contact not to oxidise. It results in a wine so unique that it becomes, perhaps one of the easiest wines to name in a blind tasting.

Guigal have made a very specific set of winemaking choices.

At the other end of the spectrum, it’s possible to make a gently pressed, tank-fermented version that has fewer phenolics from the skins and returns higher acidity and freshness.

Then there’s everything in between.

One thing is certain, good Viognier will have an entrancing perfume, and, a wonderful texture!

What happens when you blend Shiraz & Viognier

The blending of Shiraz and the white grape Viognier originated in Côte-Rôtie. The interplay between the two varieties is truly something special.

Co-fermenting rather than blending finished wines simply results in greater harmony and expression.

The colour of the wine becomes darker as a scientific phenomenon known as co-pigmentation occurs, small compounds from the Viognier stabilises the large colour compounds from the Shiraz.

Perfume, flowers, and, spice from the Viognier adding intrigue to the aroma. Making it so much more inviting!

Those aromas carry through to the palate where the last bit of magic happens. The tannins develop differently to 100% Shiraz wines, beautifully refined, and, silky they offer a wonderful feeling in your mouth. mouthfeel.

Tim Kirk from Clonkilla was kindly sent me a mixed case, including some experimental wines not for release. In it, 3 wines, 100% Viognier, 100% Shiraz, the components of his Shiraz Viognier, and, the Shiraz Viognier itself. A fascinating tasting, you could see how each of the component wines contributed to the blend. The blend just had something extra. This is the result of fermenting the red grapes of Shiraz with the white Viognier. The chemical soup that exists during fermentation ends up coming together to be greater than the sum of its parts.

In Côte-Rôtie the vineyards are mixed plantings with Viognier vines next to Shiraz, all picked at the same time. The proportion of Viognier ranging from none up to 10-12%.

Shiraz or Syrah

You’d think that Shiraz would be easy to explain. The relatively recent expansion of cool climate vineyards throughout Australia, and, experimentation with a wide array of making techniques has seen an increase in the diversity of styles produced. Think Canberra, the Yarra Valley, Adelaide Hills, and, Mornington.

At the same time, the warmer, established regions like the Barossa and McLaren Vale are rapidly evolving the styles of Shiraz they produce. A new wave of producers are making wines of restraint, and, elegance, through earlier picking and careful handling of fruit.

In the Rhône Valley, particularly around Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage and Cornas, we see some extreme vineyards that climb into the skies from the Rhône River at calf breaking angles. Some, terraced, others taking rocks that have made their way to the bottom of the slopes, on a anual pilgrimage back to the top.

When you have exceptional Shiraz the opportunity to experiment with whole berries, whole bunches, stalk use, cold maceration, extended maceration, fermentation vessel, maturation vessel, cap management, and, any of 1,000’s of other variables is possible.

In Australia, we are seeing increasing use of whole bunch ferments for at least a portion of the fruit. The perfume, stalk tannin-rich wines, layering extra dimensions into the aromas and textures of the typically more restrained wines.

Single Vineyard vs Blend

Over time ‘fashions’ have shifted from blends to single vineyard wines. Perhaps driven by the popularity of Burgundy, we’ve seen the Barolista making single vineyard or Cru wines as they call them, Australia has followed, in the 70’s Guigal launched the La La’s, creating three of the now most renowned single vineyard wines of the world.

Staunch ‘terroirists’ will claim a wine loses its identity, it’s sense of place if blended. Personally, I just want to drink great wine, whether, blended or single site. Aldo Conterno’s top wine is a blend of three adjacent vineyards, Vietti’s Castiglione represents, perhaps, their best value Barolo, and, often includes the fruit from the Villero vineyard, that, in exceptional years makes their Riserva, Sandrone’s Le Vigne is a blend, yet all of these wineries also make single vineyard wines. With my consumer hat on I just get to enjoy the fruits of their labour!

Sitting down with Stéphane Ogier and trying his Lieux Dits, which translates to ‘said location’, and, refers to a specific site akin to a single vineyard. Trying 6 of his Lieux Dits across both the Côte Blonde and Brune was a fantastic experience, as Stéphane walked us through the sites, terms like feminine, masculine, floral, savoury, earthy, and structured come through. Each wine had a great personality. Most would stand on their own, one or two looked to offer more structural elements, without the balance of fruit weight, although this judgement needs to be reserved given the youth of the wine. Tasting aged wines from the Ogier demonstrated just how much the blossom after just a few extra years in bottle.

When we got to the blended Reserve, containing each of the Lieux Dits, the whole, was definitely greater than the sum of the parts. The poise and harmony of the wine were at the next level.

So, my challenge to Guigal is to make a 4 pack with the 3 La La’s individually and a blend of the 3 La La’s!

Where in the World are Cuilleron’s Wines Made?

Yves Cuilleron’s vineyard holdings are spread through the Northern appelations (regions) of the Rhône Valley between Valence and Lyon. These are the home of whites made from Viognier, Marsanne, Roussane and blends of the three, with reds made from Shiraz and blends of Shiraz and Viognier from Côte Rôtie. The sites on the banks of the Rhône River are calf snappingly steep. Pulley systems and vineryard sized monorails often used to haul fruit and earth up the hills. In many vineyards, terraces lined by stone walls as tall as a man are used to hold the mountains back!

This wine comes from Condrieu.

Côte-Rôtie itself is split into to main sub-regions, the Côte Blonde and the Côte Brune. Hermitage is some 50km further South down the Rhône River.

If you face the hill from the Château d’Ampuis itself to the South you find the Côte Blonde, where soils are heavy with granite and produce elegance feminine wines.

To the North lies the Côte Brune, here the soils comprise mica schists and clay, yielding more masculine, structured wines.

Like Burgundy, individual vineyards in Côte-Rôtie have been identified, named, and, clear boundaries established.

Where Hermitage is dominated by 4 main producers, including Guigal, Côte-Rôtie, now has around 100 producers making wine from it’s 550acres of plantings.

Click to enlarge 🔎

Where in the world does the magic happen?

Cave Yves Cuilleron, RD 1086, Chavanay, France

Côte-Rôtie
Northern Rhône
Rhône Valley
France