With its landscape of steep slopes and dry stone walls allowing a terrace cultivation particularly suitable for high quality wines production, the Côte-Rôtie vineyard starts at an altitude of 150 meters and extends up to 300 meters, where the first plane areas are formed. Enjoying a warm and sunny microclimate - that probably explains the qualifying term of "rôtie" attributed to the designation's name - this terroir subjected to high temperatures resists these extreme conditions thanks to a north wind, called the "bise, that tempers the atmosphere. The apparent rock is a primary metamorphic rock whose many cracks help the vine to plunge its roots, allowing it to draw water and nutrients.
The Côte-Rôtie designation is the only one allowing to blend white grape variety, the Viognier, with the red grape variety, the Syrah. This technique makes it possible to accentuate the wines fineness, the presence of Viognier being limited to 20% of the total quantity ; in fact, the winemakers rarely exceed 10%.
The Côte-Rôtie wines are of an exceptional level, they will however appear a little bit austere in their early youth because they are long-keeping wines needing several years in cellar to reveal their personnalities. A widely rewarded expectation ...