January 5, 2024 - Excellent wine, if too young. Loads of dark red fruit and musky perfume. Huge dry extract. Needs food. 93-94 now with 95-96 in 10 years..
June 17, 2023 - Bottle 1/2. Served too warm in our garden, but still delivered beautiful black fruit, leather and roasted meat. Still young. 94+/100
March 31, 2023 - Lush bouquet with iron and other mineral impressions. Some development as well. On the palate the same impressions, red and dark berries, sweet spices, full bodied, good acidity and still round and friendly sticky tannin. Young maturity stage now. 93 - 94
July 1, 2022 - One of the best with 2019 and 2020
June 19, 2022 - To celebrate all the fellow Dads out there this Father’s Day I popped a cult Northern Rhone and cooked Iberico pluma (even the fussy 6y old wolfed it down 😹).
Opaque purple colour. Orchard fruit and spring flowers on the bouquet. Palate was most open after 1.5 hours of air: purple fruit, red fruit, dark chocolate, freshly cut flowers, mint cream and a superbly balanced finish of chocolate covered cherries and velvet. Just no hard edges and super complex. A touch closed at this youthful stage but 96/100 point potential easy.
Happy Father’s Day everyone!
May 27, 2020 - Agree with others. This is a full throttle wine which evolves in the glass and shows a wide array of nuance. In essence this opens up big and modern with black and blue fruits dominant. With time starts to show more spring flower, violet, herbal and tea leaf notes. The tannins and acid provide a nice juxtaposition to the fruit complex. Well made and showing quite well over a 5 hours period.
April 24, 2020 - Wow, this is a truly great wine.
Day 1: if you don’t like Blackforest Cake from a 3 star restaurant, then you won’t like this bouquet. Ultra refined tannins linger around on the palate. Everything is quite precise, no brett notes, no rustic aromas.
Day 2: The wine becomes even more focused with the tannins having a much tighter grip.
I expect this wine can effortlessly develop and age for 2-3 decades. It will be exciting to follow its evolution. I guess it could shutdown for a couple years from now.
October 10, 2019 - 25% whole bunches. 24 months on oak hence 20% new oak. 3500 bottles are made.
A little gentle on the aromas, yet so seductive with lovely red berries, fruit peel, leather, salt and spices. Lovely, almost electric touch on this full-bodied wine with wonderful fruit quality throughout. Fresh darker red berries, graphite, licorice and this distinctive feature of terroir. Delicate Syrah wine with energy all the way through. Long mineral finish. In the top layer of Cornas. 94 points.
December 11, 2018 - A week in the Northern Rhone; 12/7/2018-12/15/2018 (Lyon, Vienne, Ampuis, Chavanay, Hermitage, Cornas, St. Joseph, Condrieu & Paris): A separate parcel that does not get made every vintage - in those years it gets blended into the Vieilles Vignes. Aged 24 months in barrel (20% new). Very structured and super young - so right now it is all tannins and acid. Needs lots of time - give it ten years, but should be really interesting.