Winemaker Notes
The color is an intense garnet red. In its youth, this wine has strong blackcurrant aromas. With time, the fruit aromas gradually fade, giving the way to hints of pepper and licorice. The palate is structured and has the strongly-defined flavors that are typical from this "terroir".
Pairs well with mixed grills, wild mushrooms, game (which can be served with spicy sauces). This wine needs at least 3 years cellaring before it can open up its complexity. If kept for longer than this, the wine should be decanted before serving.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Whiffs of sun-scorched earth, charred brush and dried lilac persist from nose to finish in this irresistibly glossy Cornas. It’s seductive and smoky but remarkably pure in fruit, edged by ripe, penetrating tannins. Quite ready now it will continue to improve through 2030 and hold further.
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Wine Spectator
Racy and chiseled in feel, with a vibrant chalky minerality running from start to finish, giving this bristling energy as red currant, damson plum, lilac and savory notes cruise through. The long finish delivers a piercing sanguine accent, and the minerality just won't quit. Best from 2021 through 2040.
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Decanter
Sourced from various south-facing plots, all hand-picked and fermented in open-top concrete vats, then matured in barrel for 14 months before release. Always a ripe and oaky style, the 2017 is no different - there's a rich concentration of blackberry and blackcurrant with a background of star anise, clove and incense. A real burst of fruit breaks free from the oak, and the finish is just a little pinched but should settle. Always seductive.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
As usual, the Delas Cornas is an elegant rendering of the appellation. The 2017 Cornas Chante Perdrix hints at violets and raspberries on the nose, then delivers more of the same on the medium to full-bodied palate. It's silky and fine in texture, not a big, meaty style, but it still delivers plenty of pleasure. Tasted twice (once blind), with consistent notes.
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Jeb Dunnuck
I loved the nose of the 2017 Cornas Chante Perdrix. It’s a medium-bodied, balanced, elegant Cornas with classic aromatics (violets, incense, black pepper, and dark fruits), silky tannins, and a seamless texture. It’s already drinking nicely yet should easily evolve for a decade.
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James Suckling
A rich and warm, dark-plum, chocolate and pepper nose with a plush and quite round palate that holds good, central fruit flesh and delivers a dark-plum and ripe-blackberry thread on the palate.
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.