At this point, we all know about the King of the Rhone, Georges Lelektsoglou of Compagnie de l'Hermitage, who has been the first person to sell pretty much all of the great wines of the Northern Rhone. His store is a shrine for winemakers and wine lovers alike. At the Greek's store in Tain, this is only producer he "hides" and only gives to "worthy" people. It's the special stash.
David Reynaud of Domaine Les Bruyeres became famous the hard way. He worked his butt off making great wine in an out of favor appellations, Crozes Hermitage. His Crozes are some of the best of the new wave of terrific Crozes sweeping across France like Darnaud, Alexandrins and Habrard. The French press absolutely love him and he has quickly ascended as part of his family's co-op to one of the top Domaines in Crozes. Once he became famous for that, he started producing Cornas. It's just like Burgundy, you might start with Savigny or Monthelie, get famous and then you start making Nuits or Chambolle.
The Cornas is great but the big shots who drink Cornas in the States do not know about Reynaud yet. That will change and the prices will go up but for now, they are relatively affordable and I was able to get a teeny allocation of the Greek's stash.
Today I can offer Reynaud's very limited production 2013 Domaine Les Bruyeres (David Reynaud) Cornas "Rebelle" for as little as $57.99 on a 3-pack. (Compare from $65-$85 for older vintages) This is very rare as he only makes 180 cases. What I absolutely love about this wine that besides its superb quality it can be pop and poured now and can and will improve with age.
Simply, this is a great wine. And a wine that is qualitatively excellent but also of a slightly different style than the other great Cornas producers. If you love Cornas, you owe it to yourself to try it.
It is a beautifully executed wine of grace, finesse and juicy fruit. Wonderful freshness and vivacious roundness. Dark as Cornas should be but vibrant as well. Ripe, juicy tannins and so much granitic goodness. I love the forceful minerality combined with exceptionally juicy fruit. Leather, smoke and licorice add complexity. A wonderful interplay that only Cornas can do. This is fermented in concrete vats and then aged in older barrels of 4-5 years of age and really has a polished yet old school vibe to it. When one opens a Cornas sometimes one wants a juicy up front mass of fruit with great freshness and purity and also the unique character of Cornas. It's terrific. Serette, my other Cornas producer, I find needs age, but Reynaud's Cornas is an immense wine of pleasure in its youth and is so absurdly delicious it is almost criminal. I can only imagine what it will taste like in 15 years.
Cornas is one of the first Northern Rhone wines that really spoke to me after reading my very first wine boom, which was Parker's book on the Rhone. I loved the way the wine was described. A black wine, that needs, actually demands age, but once aged, it's glories reveal themselves. But one has to have patience and one also must be a a masochist if one was to broach a young Cornas. That was around 1996. And back then that is what Cornas was. It needed age. It demanded age. Things are a bit different now and Cornas, can be accessible and sometimes just stunningly delicious in its youth and can age and reveal its true glories. Changes in winemaking and consumer drinking habits and also people with less space and less patience to age their wines have almost dictated a change to the way winemaker's make Cornas, Barolo, Barbaresco and Bordeaux. But at once these can be delicious young they also do have the ability to age.
David Reynaud has a mid sized Domaine in Crozes Hermitage and he is and ECO certified biodynamic/organic estate. Most hot young producers that we work with usually have a hook and that hook is not killer terroir but superior effort from less exalted terroir and hope of getting better terroir one day in the future. Usually they are making wines in less than ideal slices of lands but way way exceeding what that land is usually capable of churning out. That is an example with countless producers of ours, especially in Burgundy and the Northern Rhone. Imagine if Vincent Ledy had Chambolle or if Etienne Chomorat had Hermitage. Or in David Reynaud's case what if he had Cornas. While he makes excellent Crozes Hermitage from all bio/org sites you really see what David if capable of with his dramatic and insanely devious bottle of rare Cornas. So here it is, a rarity at Fass Selections, a chance to get that better terroir before David is really not affordable.
2013 Domaine Les Bruyeres (David Reynaud) Cornas - $59.99
($173.97 3-pack) (VERY LIMITED)
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