From: The Northern Cotes du Rhone, France
Varietal: Syrah
Taste: Gorgeous and rare 100% Syrah from the Northern Rhone. In the glass it’s fresh and lively, with notes of black currant, cherry, licorice, olive and cracked pepper- Syrah’s floral quality showing itself with air. The palate follows suit with subtle smoke, herb, and spice notes accenting all those dark fruits; everything reigned in with fine-grained tannins and a supple finish.
Pairing: You could easily pair this alongside dishes like beef stew, braised or grilled meats, grilled vegetables, Mediterranean fare, curries, and beloved weeknight fare like burgers and tacos (our fave, after all, this type of wine is meant to elevate a meal!). So, while we will happily get lamb gyro take-out to pair with this wine, we’re going to share a 5-star recipe for Grilled Lamb Kebabs With Smoky Peaches by John Willoughby and Chris Schlesinger for a 35 minute home-run, home-cooked pairing to this stunner.
This wine. ”With the purpose of ensuring very high standards to maintain superb quality for our Cornas wines, for our winemaking we handle separately grapes from our youngest vines (less than 10 years old) or those that come from terroirs which are trickier in difficult years. To this quantity that varies from one vintage to another, we add wine produced organically, which we buy from a terroir situated as close as possible to Cornas. It possesses the qualities of freshness we seek and will blend coherently with the wine that comes from our youngest vines.”
2020 vintage notes. Healthy and easy sanitary season for the vineyard. Not the same for the winemakers and vine growers that went through the sanitary measures of covid with a lot of availability…Furthermore, the main word of 2020 vintage was “early”: budburst, flowering, ripening and harvest… started on August 20th for the first Marsannes of Saint-Péray, and finished on September 15 on the atop plots of Cornas.Well-balanced juices in Saint-Péray, without too much alcohol, after very dynamic fermentations of our natural yeasts. In Cornas, a well-balances vintage too, fruity but with ripe tannins, spicy sometimes and full-bodied, full of promises…
Why we love it. Always beloved by the critics, Domaine Alain Voge is one of the last- and long-standing authentic values of Cornas. But if you’re looking for a wine to enjoy while his higher-end bottlings rest in your cellar, or simply trying to find a more affordable expression of traditional Northern Rhône Syrah, look no further than “Les Peyrouses.” For fractions less than his top bottlings, you’re hardly sacrificing anything: It comes from a combination of young vines in Cornas and a small parcel just right outside of the appellation. It’s an organic, granite-based, barrel-aged Syrah that is a perfect, affordable snapshot of this storied region.