Winemaker Notes
Pair this wine with mixed grills such as wild mushrooms and spicy stews made with game. This wine needs at least three years of cellaring before it can open up its complexity. If kept for longer, the wine should be decanted before serving.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Energetic bay leaf, black olive, tobacco and dried star anise notes stud a core of dark plum and blackberry fruit. A tobacco edge holds the finish, with mouthwatering acidity carrying everything. Very solid. Best from 2016 through 2022.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A supple, polished and perfumed wine, the 2012 Cornas Chante Perdrix gives up plenty of black raspberry, peppery herbs, green olive and licorice. Medium to full-bodied, with good mid-palate depth, high-quality tannin, and an already upfront style, drink it over the coming 7-8 years.
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.