Winemaker Notes
Patou is the top site south of the village of Cornas with decomposed granite and a rich soil that gives supple tannins and perfumed wines. This pure Syrah wine showcases the true soul of Cornas: deeply colored, robustly structured, endlessly satisfying. Black and purple fruits mix with silky tannins and hints of licorice and soy.
Ideal pairings for this wine includes grilled pork sausages, game meat in red wine sauce, and roast lamb.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Old school goodness all the way, the 2020 Cornas Patou offers up an awesome nose of bloody blue fruits, leather, iron, and violets. This carries to a full-bodied, structured, tannic, yet pure barrel sample that's going benefit from 4-6 years of bottle age and keep for two decades. This cuvée comes from 80-year-old vines and is brought up all in older barrels. If you love classic Cornas, give this a whirl.
Range: 94-96 -
Decanter
Lifted, spicy, quite intense aromas that suggest a wine that will be ready to drink young, showing black fruits, little balsamic notes and a resinous tang. Medium-bodied, this has some volume on the palate and it's shot through with pliable, ripe tannin. Not a massive wine, but an approachable one with a good sense of typicity and an enjoyable, tight and slender aspect to the palate. From 80-year-old vines grown on granite, fermented in concrete, matured in old barriques. Usually a good value pick.
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Wine Spectator
Shows great focus and freshness, with a gorgeous stream of blackberry, blueberry and violet supported by a bed of ultrafine tannins and chalky minerals. Offers olive tapenade and wood spice flecks, which add a savory detail to the silky, long 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.