Rhône 2017
“A tale of the unexpected”
The 2017 season was characterised by drought that set in at an early stage and lasted throughout the summer. In fact it was one of the driest summers on record. However, as Julien Barrot of Domaine La Barroche put it, “the wines are not what you would expect from such a dry year. As long as you did the right things vine shut-down was not a big problem, I remember the vineyards being much more stressed in 2005, for example.” Flowering was not very successful anywhere in the Rhône, but Grenache was particularly affected by coulure, as it so often is. Drought and coulure have meant it is a small harvest across the valley, smallest of all in the South. The poor flowering may not have been music to the ears of producers’ bank managers, but it was a silver lining as far as quality was concerned. From the outset the vines were much less laden with fruit than they would normally have been and so were less inclined to stress, shut down and block grape ripening during the drought.