Rising Stars of French Winemaking Eric Pfanner/International Herald Tribune The vineyards of Cairanne, with the village in the background. CAIRANNE, FRANCE - Across many parts of wine-producing France, a lively debate is under way between partisans of two great vintages, 2009 and 2010. Some prefer the ripe, plump, charming 2009s, others the structured, sterner, more "classic" 2010s. But in one area, the southern part of the Rhône Valley, there is no argument. Even though there's nothing wrong with 2009, 2010 is clearly better, maybe even one of the best vintages ever for the great red wines of the region. That's saying something, because the southern Rhône has been on a roll. Over the past decade, only two vintages, 2002 and 2008, were disappointing, and most of the rest were at least very good. One, 2007, was praised to the heavens. Now, many growers say their 2010s, only recently bottled, are superior to the 2007s. After recent visits to the southern Rhône, taking in the most famous winemaking town in the region, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and two lesser-known villages, Rasteau and Cairanne, I wouldn't necessarily disagree. I'll look at Châteauneuf-du-Pape, whose vineyards lie just alongside the river, between the cities of Avignon and Orange, in a future column. First, it's worth making a side trip to Cairanne and Rasteau, which are nestled in the scrub-covered hills below Mont Ventoux and the serrated peaks of the Dentelles de Montmirail, a few kilometers northeast of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Why Cairanne and Rasteau? These are two of the new stars of the southern Rhône, the climatically distinct, Mediterranean portion of a river that is lined with vineyards much of the way back to its source in a much cooler place, the Rhône Glacier in the Swiss Alps. For a long time, the southern part of the valley was known mainly for Châteauneuf-du-Pape and for bargeloads of rustic Côtes-du-Rhône from the sprawling vineyards all around it. Eventually, the French winemaking authorities elevated other individual villages to "cru" status, starting in 1971 with Gigondas. This meant they, like Châteauneuf-du-Pape, could display their own names on the label, unaccompanied by the humbler regional designation. The most recent to be promoted was Rasteau, in 2010. Rasteau was previously a standalone cru for a small amount of fortified wine, but the new designation covers the village's main output - dry red table wine. Cairanne, a few kilometers to the west, has applied for promotion and, if all goes well, could receive it within a few years. For now, it is a so-called Côtes-du-Rhône Villages, an in-between designation. Now that we've dispensed with the bureaucratic formalities, let's get down to what really matters: the hedonistic appeal, and the great value, of these wines. The reds of Cairanne and Rasteau, while subtly different, are archetypal southern Rhône wines - fruity, heady and powerful. They are infused with the region's signature herbal, spicy notes, redolent of the fragrant garrigue, or underbrush, that covers the parched, Provençal hills anywhere where no vineyards or vacation homes have been planted. These wines are at their best in vintages like 2010, when the jammy fruit and substantial doses of alcohol - 15 percent or more is not unusual - are balanced by fresh acidity and complemented by ripe, refined tannins. Unlike the 2009s from the southern Rhône, which sometimes seem a bit too big, a bit too dry, the 2010s are all about elegance. Yet there are none of the negative connotations - thinness, a lack of ripeness - that "elegance" sometimes implies. 2010 was helped, paradoxically, by a malady called coulure, in which the grapes fail to develop properly after flowering in the spring. As a result, the harvest was tiny - down by one-third or more for many southern Rhône growers. "We didn't count the bunches, we counted the grapes," said Romain Duvernay, a producer and merchant in the region.