Winemaker Notes
#32 Jeb Dunnuck Top 100 of 2025
#99 James Suckling Top 100 Wines of the World 2025
The Clape family vinifies in large, old, wooden casks and makes majestically dark and brooding Cornas, layered with aromas of herbs and mint.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Tasting this very powerful and concentrated Cornas is like listening to a piece of organ music when the bass kicks in. Very meaty. A wealth of blackberry aromas unfurls as it aerates in the glass. More than enough fruit and flesh to wrap around the imposing core of beautifully crafted tannins. The deep bass notes echo on and on in the compelling finish.
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Jeb Dunnuck
No Renaissance was produced in this vintage. Reminding me of the 2017, the 2022 Cornas reveals gorgeous red and black fruits, violets, bouquet garni, and gamey, iron-like nuances. Medium to full-bodied on the palate, it has fine tannins, beautiful overall balance, plenty of mid-palate depth, and a gorgeous finish. This is well worth your time and money, and I'd be thrilled with bottles in the cellar. Hide bottles for 5-7 years and enjoy over the following two decades. Drink 2030-2050.
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Decanter
A tasting of various barrel samples suggests that the 2022 vintage here will be very good, if not necessarily the most powerful year. The fruit is quite dark in character and there's a good sense of purity if not the same freshness as 2021 or 2020, or the grandeur of 2019. Nonetheless, an excellent wine and a fairly typical expression of Clape Cornas. Tannins are ripe and elegant.
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Wine Spectator
Dark, dense and brooding, this is packed with beautiful notes of violet and spices overlaying a thick core of steeped plum and açaí berry. Earthy and savory, with loamy soil and cigar box notes adding to the textural depth and complexity.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Cornas from Clape saw the integration of the crop from the cuvée Renaissance due to a challenging flowering period and dry conditions, resulting in a production volume 45% less than usual. Evoking aromas of acetate, nail polish, violets and spices mingled with carnal/animal-like notes, it's dense and firm, with an important chassis of tannins leading to a firm, smoky, somber, meaty and introverted finish.
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.