Winemaker Notes
Blend: 100% Syrah
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Cornas les Eygats is similarly concentrated to the Sabrotte, but offers more pepper, iron, sweet black cherry and strawberry fruit. This medium-bodied, supple, pure and beautifully polished effort is another 2014 that can be enjoyed today, but will keep for a decade. These 2014s show the more mid-weight, focused style of the vintage, yet have beautiful character and are already approachable. Drink these while you wait on the 2015s.
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Wine Spectator
This has a fresh core of kirsch and raspberry coulis notes, lined with fresh bay leaf and a twinge of white pepper. The racy finish is carried by a light iron edge. Drink now through 2024.
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.