The Premier Cru Nobody Labels

Côte Rôtie

Morey-Saint-Denis has twenty premier crus, and Côte Rôtie is the one that exists almost entirely on paper. It shares its name with the Syrah appellation of the northern Rhône, which is where nearly every search for it ends up, but the two have nothing in common beyond the words themselves, which describe a slope roasted by the sun.

Map of Côte Rôtie
View on the interactive map →

The site

The classified parcel covers 1.23 hectares in a single block, measured from the delimitation, the same figure the climat registers give. The land registry adds a sliver of about 0.11 hectares that carries only the village appellation, so the lieu-dit as a whole is slightly larger than the premier cru.

It is the westernmost premier cru of the commune: a thin east-west strip about 300 metres long and 80 metres deep, some 600 metres west of the village centre. From its lower eastern end at roughly 300 metres above sea level it climbs to about 340 metres at the top, which places it at the head of the slope, above the grand crus, in the same high band as Les Chaffots and Les Genavrières 200 to 400 metres to the north-east and Monts Luisants beyond them. Its centre falls at about 47.2004 north, 4.9568 east.

Soils in this upper band are thin and stony over limestone bedrock, with little topsoil; growers here speak of ground that wrecks ploughing equipment.

Why the wine is never seen

Producers do not claim the name. The village has grown up the hill into the lieu-dit, and much of what was vineyard is now houses and gardens, so no domaine bottles a Morey-Saint-Denis premier cru called Côte Rôtie, and a labelled example is close to unknown even to specialists who have followed the commune for decades. The classification survives in the decree and on the map; any fruit from the few remaining vines goes into wines that carry a broader label, since nobody declares the climat.

For the famous Côte-Rôtie, the Syrah and Viognier appellation above Ampuis, see the Northern Rhône guide.

This guide is part of the WineSaint Wine Region Guide collection.