Côte-Rôtie and Its Various Styles Côte-Rôties were sampled at a dinner at the North End Grill. TO most wine drinkers today, the name Marius Gentaz means nothing. But to a devoted cadre of Côte-Rôtie lovers, no name is more revered. Gail Skoff To some Côte-Rôtie lovers, no name is more revered than that of Marius Gentaz, whose wines epitomized the flavors of that region. The wines of Gentaz-Dervieux epitomize the fragile balance among gorgeous, subtle aromas; an earthy, almost animal-like complexity; and elegant, delicate textures that once distinguished this northernmost appellation in the northern Rhône Valley. Yet the precious supply of these wines is almost gone. After the 1993 vintage, Mr. Gentaz retired, and he died last year. Collectors hoard a dwindling number of bottles, to be shared on special occasions with a charmed few. Such is the sad prospect for small family estates without heirs ready to step in at retirement or death. Throughout the world of wine, legendary names associated with beautiful wines - like Noël Verset of Cornas, Raymond Trollat of St.-Joseph, Giovannini Moresco of Barbaresco and Henri Jayer and Jacky Truchot of Burgundy - are consigned to history once they can no longer make wine. Yet in Côte-Rôtie, the story goes deeper. The gradual drinking-up of the Gentaz-Dervieux wines also represents the ebbing of a classic style. Yes, it still has a handful of excellent practitioners, but the profile of Côte-Rôtie has been, as the wine writer Hugh Johnson once put it, "comprehensively reinterpreted." Nowadays, rather than a perfumed delicacy, a bottle of Côte-Rôtie is more likely to be a powerhouse, big and fruity and, especially when young, with the woody patina that comes from aging in new oak barrels. The Côte-Rôties of Guigal epitomize this style. They are excellent wines, but a marked departure from the style that Gentaz-Dervieux and others followed in the past. The lavish praise they've received from critics and the high prices they fetch have influenced many. "Traditionalism is endangered," said Mannie Berk, president of the Rare Wine Company, a leading wine importer, and a clear advocate for traditional Côte-Rôtie. Without greater awareness of the beauty of traditional Côte-Rôtie, it could be largely gone within a generation. All over the wine-producing world, the tension between traditional and modern techniques and styles has been well documented. Nowhere has this been more true than in Barolo and Barbaresco in the Piedmont region of Italy, where animosity split the region into two warring camps 25 years ago. Over time, though, the extreme positions softened, and many producers moderated their tone and practices. Partly, Mr. Berk suggested, this was because the vehement debate exposed consumers to the points of contention, allowing them to determine their own preferences. "There has been no such discussion in Côte-Rôtie," he said. "This is very different from Piedmont, where there is a far greater awareness of producers" styles, a fact that I think has been hugely helpful in re-establishing traditionalism there." In an effort to foster such a discussion, Mr. Berk recently organized a small dinner in New York to explore the various styles of Côte-Rôtie. In addition to him and several others from Rare Wine, the guests included Stephen Grant, who collects Rhône wines; Peter Sisseck, the proprietor of Dominio de Pingus in Ribera del Duero, whose wines are imported by Rare Wine and who happened to be passing through New York - and me. The wines were selected by Mr. Berk to represent the different styles, and included several from Gentaz-Dervieux. Côte-Rôtie is famously translated as "roasted slope," implying hot weather. In fact, Côte-Rôtie, a tiny appellation less than 25 miles south of Lyon near the town of Ampuis, may represent the northernmost cool-climate limit for growing the syrah grape. It is dominated by a network of ancient terraced granite vineyards on an impossibly steep slope facing south into the sun, which bathes the vines in light more than in heat. While the wines of the northern Rhône are esteemed today, 30 years ago they were hardly known. Kermit Lynch, the pioneering importer who first brought the wines of Gentaz-Dervieux to the United States, recalled his first visits to the region in the late 1970s. "It was really about as rustic as it got, the northern Rhône, just totally lost in time," he told me last week. The American public had never really heard about it, and even in France the reputation was very local.