Winemaker Notes
An early and solar vintage. Sufficient rain in August eased the heat and the drought of the month of July. The yields have been good. The wines are rich and powerful, but tended by a hint of acidity on the reds, signature of a great vintage.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
An understated style, but focus and you’ll see just how lovely the cassis, cherry and raspberry flavors are, carried by riveting acidity and flecked with notes of powdered white pepper and violet. An iron girder drives the finish, pulling everything along. This is defined by pure, sleek cut. Best from 2020 through 2035.
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James Suckling
Needs a little breathing space to open. This offers up dark plums and red cherries with wild herbs and wet slate. The palate has a crisp, fine-grained texture with smooth and fluid dark fruit and dark chocolate flavors. Tannins are a highlight – super plush and long.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
As to the 2015 reds, I wasn’t able to taste the 2015 Cornas Vieilles Fontaines, but based on the showing of the Vieilles Vignes, I have no doubt it will be a sensational wine. As to the young vine cuvée, notes of wild herbs, peppered meats, garrigue, and sweet currants and blackberries all emerge from Voge's 2015 Cornas les Chailles, and it has full-bodied richness and incredible purity. As always, it has a polished, seamless style, yet it is 100% Cornas through and through. It should drink nicely in its youth and last for 15+ years.
Barrel Sample: 91-93 -
Jeb Dunnuck
The young(er) vine cuvée is the 2015 Cornas Les Chailles which comes from the Chaillot, Mazards, Chapuze, and Combe lieux-dits. It’s all destemmed and brought up in older barrels. It offers terrific black fruits, saddle leather, bouquet garni and floral/violet aromas and flavors, full-bodied richness, plenty of sweet tannin and a great finish. It's going to be a terrific value.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Distinguished as a fine Syrah producing zone since the 18th century, Cornas, like Cote Rotie, is made up of vineyards covering steep and hard-to-work, granite terraces. As a result the region’s wines fell out of favor during the mid 20th century when the global market was more focused on bulk wines and vineyards that yielded high quantities. It wasn’t until the 1980s when a group of energetic young winemakers reestablished the integrity of these precipitous terraces and also began making an ultra-modern style of Syrah. The new style didn’t need a decade before it was drinkable and could reach the consumer faster than the region’s traditional wines. Given the new quality coming out of the zone, its popularity once again soared and today a good Cornas can easily challenge many of those from Hermitage. Characteristics of Syrah from Cornas include teeth-staining flavors of blackberry jam, plum, pepper, violets, smoked game, charcoal, chalk dust and smoke.