Winemaker Notes
A superb, deep black cherry color. On the nose, complex and elegant with notes of spices, violets, and black fruit and vanilla. On the palate, powerful, structured notes of black fruit, herbs, white pepper and blueberry. Delicious with game such as duck, hare, or pigeon, but also perfect with a roasted entrecote steak.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
Hints of char, dried porcini and dark chocolate juxtapose concentrated blackberry and cassis in this rich, boldly structured Syrah. It’s an intensely juicy sip highlighting ripe, luscious black fruit but balanced freshly too. Lingering earth tones and fine, persistent tannins mark a long finish. Approachable already it’s sturdy enough to improve well through 2035.
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Wine Spectator
This has a ripe and fleshy feel, with blueberry, açaí and blackberry compote flavors at the core, laced with cocoa powder and smoldering tobacco notes. The plush feel recedes on the finish a touch as a cast-iron note creeps in, keeping this grounded. Very solid. Best from 2023 through 2035.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The full-bodied 2016 Cornas les Ruchets can't match the la Louvée for sheer silkiness or perfume, but it delivers more savory complexity and richness. Smoky, meaty and plummy up front, this full-bodied effort adds hints of raspberries on the palate, then finishes long and velvety. It's a terrific wine for drinking over the next decade or so.
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.