A rising star of the Northern Rhone

Although the Roudier family had farmed their estate in the hills immediately north of Tain l’Hermitage for several generations, they were not from a line of vignerons. Their roots lie in the other great agricultural traditions of the region, tending to more than 20 hectares of apricots and cherries, growing lavender, and hunting for truffles in the woodlands that fringed their orchards and fields.

Yet it is hard to live so close to Hermitage and not to love the wines of the Northern Rhône, and when the latest in the dynasty, Pierre Roudier, took the reins of the estate, he set about converting some of their holdings to viticulture, planting 15 hectares of their land to vines from 2010 onwards.

Their land, stretching from the hills around the village of Larnage, to the alluvial plain south of Tain and across the river to Cornas, was replete with impeccable terroir, including historic lieux-dits (Les Coulaires, for instance) which had been left to go fallow during the middle of the twentieth century.

With the expertise of consultant oenologist Emmanuel Gagnepain to guide them, Domaine Vendome have made astonishing progress over the past 15 years, becoming one of the hottest small names in this sector of the Northern Rhône having started with almost nothing.

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