Our final day ended on a total high. Checked out and on the coach at 8.30 we were back in Ampuis by 9.30am, and welcomed into the wonderful world of Guigal. Guigal are the pre-eminent négociant and domain of Côte Rôtie, and have a great story, starting with 14 year old Etienne Guigal starting to work for Vidal-Fleury in 1924, over time developing his own business: buying vineyards across the Rhône Valley, several wineries (that still operate under their own names, including Vidal-Fleury), and buying in grapes to make wine as a négociant. Marcel Guigal, Etienne’s son, put Côte Rôtie on the map with his LaLaLa wines, of which more later.
At the Caveau, Guigal’s newish ‘visitor centre’ in Ampuis we met our guide Tiffany, who boarded the coach with us in order to visit a vineyard. Not just any vineyard, we stood at the foot of the Côte Blonde, one of Côte Rôtie’s two famous hills, and the site of Guigal’s La Mouline vineyard. There were people working in the vines on the steep slopes, we were lower down, but felt for them in the fierce sunshine.
Tiffany explained about their A frame Echallas training system (similar to the U shape we had seen the previous day), designed to present vine leaves to the East and West, and allow the northerly and southerly winds to pass through the gap between the two vines. She explained the terraces were built by the Romans, and can only be worked manually. The Syrah and Viognier vines we were beside looked vibrantly healthy, with grapes already swelling in size, though still green. A carpet of wildflowers was beneath them, it was really pretty.
The soil of the Côte Blonde (next photo) is paler and more sandy than that of the Côte Brune, which is behind the Caveau, on the other side of the Reynard brook and has more impermeable schist soils with lots of iron. Later in the morning we were to discover the contrasting styles of wine resulting from these neighbouring sites.
But first we visited the winery back in the town centre. It has a footprint of 3 hectares (and expansion is underway) and on a completely different scale to all the other visits we have made – though like the others, still family owned!
Guigal mature wines from all their vineyards in the Rhône Valley at this site, so there were a lot of barriques (made by their in house cooper), and also foudres in which they mature their Southern Rhône wines which based on Grenache.
It was an amazing experience to walk through the cavernous barrel cellars to see the tiny grape reception area with its ‘mission control’ panel, and then to go upstairs to see the bottling and labelling lines and marvel at the robots assembling boxes, filling them with bottles and building pallets.
From the winery we returned to the Caveau, and ascended to an airy tasting room for a tasting of five wines. Two wonderfully contrasting Condrieus, one from Domaine de Bonserine, the other from three Guigal Lieux-Dits, a delicious Saint-Joseph (from their Château d’Ampuis) and finally a comparison of La Mouline and La Landonne, two of the most famous (and high quality) Côte Rôtie wines in the world!
The former is made from grapes grown on the Côte Blonde (see photo above), the latter from grapes grown on the Côte Brune (next picture), and this showed through in the colour, aroma and palate of the two – La Mouline was lighter, fresher and more approachable, La Landonne was denser and felt in need of more time. Both were beautiful expressions of the spicy, peppery, floral notes that add to the ripe black fruit of Syrah, and both were showing the first signs of evolution with cedar, forest floor and even farmyard notes. It was an amazing experience, a perfect culmination of our tasting adventures.
But our day was not complete, as Guigal had put on the most delicious buffet lunch that just kept on coming. Accompanied by their Hermitage and a Côte Rôtie from Chateaux d’Ampuis this was a lovely relaxed way to end the tour, before our final coach journey to the airport. Thanks were given to Tiffany, the lovely catering staff, Tim and every tour member who have made this tour such a friendly and fun experience.
However long it takes us to get back to the Northern Rhône Valley, it will be too long!