Riding the Range
The Rhône Rangers represent not a region or single grape variety but a shared vision. With a name brought to fame on an old Wine Spectator cover, a unique wine organization was born.
The Annual Rhône Rangers Experience held in Paso Robles this February — and every February — is a testament to their — our — vision. This year’s event, the 19th, saw over eighty wineries presenting their wines to more than five hundred passionate consumers.
In my decades of doing wine events, I have never encountered a better-educated group of consumers. When you pour a roussanne or cinsault few attendees say I’ve never heard of that. It is a great gift to the winemakers pouring their wines.
As a business, why would a winery want to venture outside the big five varieties that dominate consumer purchases? There are practical answers to that question. First, anyone not growing the ideal varieties for their vineyard site is just kidding themselves. They will never make a wine that will stand out from the crowd. The second reason is as pragmatic. Why try to compete in an overcrowded market with mediocre chardonnay or cabernet sauvignon when you can do something special? If you can’t deliver something exceptionally interesting, how can you compete? Better is the ultimate sales pitch.
There is something distinct about the Rhône Rangers and their members, who are comrades in arms when it comes to the wine sales wars. Perhaps it is that so many varieties are represented or simply the mindset of those who plan to take this alternative route. I was honored to be on the seminar panel for this year’s Rhône Rangers Experience. Eight wineries offered eight wines to over two hundred attendees without repeating a style or variety. Well, there was a grenache rosé and a red grenache, but you get the point.
What is enlightening and humbling to me when I participate in these panels is how diverse the personal voyage of each speaker is as their personality expresses itself in their wines. The humbling part is that it’s always important for a winemaker to understand there is more than one valid expression of each variety.
The panel presented two wines that stood out to me among a group where every wine was a passionate example of the winemaker’s vision. That said, these two wines connected to my vision. The 2022 Last of Five Cinsault from Nenow Family Wines in Paso was lifted, lovely and floral. The 2021 Grenache Robert Rae from Clementine Carter in the Santa Rita Hills was a study in delicate balance with silky tannins and zesty fruit. I presented our 2022 Troon Vineyard Amphora Mourvèdre and was thrilled by the responses I received from the attendees. We are excited by the balance and distinctive textures that aging in amphorae brought to this young vine mourvèdre.
As always, I am busy pouring at these events and cannot get out from behind my table to taste other wines. Yet at my table at the Rhône Rangers experience I am always invigorated by the energy of the consumers who are as passionate about these varieties as those of us who grow and make wines from the classic varieties of southern France.
There are no lone rangers at this wine tasting.
