Cornas is the appellation I turn to when I’m craving Northern Rhône Syrah at its earthiest and most robust. Côte-Rôtie might be more elegant, Hermitage more stately, but nowhere is Syrah more Syrah than Cornas. For proof, I offer Domaine Leménicier's 2019. 

Our tasting notes on this soulful showstopper read like a master class in Northern Rhône varietal character and terroir, with every classic aspect—dark brambly fruit, bacon fat, cracked black pepper—ratcheted up to maximum volume. To boot, it’s got the structure and breed to offer all this wild pleasure, and more, for decades to come. The hills of Cornas produce a juice unlike anything else in the world: some of the deepest, most powerful, most sauvage wines on the planet. A few intrepid souls, like Jacques Leménicier, saw the beauty of the place and stuck with it, and now a bottle of perfect Cornas is an obsessive object of desire for sommeliers and wine collectors the world over. Leménicier ticks every box with this one: hedonistic, leap out of the glass deliciousness now, ageability for later, and pedigree to impress any jaded wine drinker. 

Cornas, the southernmost appellation of the “northern” Rhône, is a place where legends loom large. It’s a small area, with fewer than 300 acres approved for AOC status. And it’s planted entirely to Syrah on steep slopes of pure granite, the southern tip of the same geological formation responsible for the noble hill of Hermitage. These unforgiving vineyards were in danger of being totally abandoned for much of the 20th century. Most of the village’s younger generations opted for an easier life working in Lyon or Paris, but Leménicier's life has been dedicated to Cornas—as is evident from the first sip of this textbook bottle.

Jacques learned his trade at the foot of not one, but two legends: Robert Michel and Alain Voge. He dropped out of high school to work with them, in fact, getting as good an education in the terroirs and traditions of the village as one could hope for. The techniques he learned at their sides—organic viticulture, whole-cluster fermentation, judicious use of oak—result in some of the best Cornas we’ve tasted from the current generation. Now, Jacques is on his way to legend status himself, having run his own domaine for more than 30 years. Today’s singular offering is all the proof we need that he deserves to be counted amongst the best in the appellation!

In the glass, today’s 2019 is like the Northern Rhône Syrah thrown into HD focus. It pours an opaque purple-black with a pink rim. The nose is soaring, opulent, wild. It oozes all sorts of black and blue fruits: blackberries, black cherries, a hint of blueberry; signature notes of smoke, black olive, and white pepper follow, with a hot rock minerality shot through. The palate is rich and supple, the dark berries coming to the fore, but never clunky or leaden. More savory tones, like bacon fat and black pepper, come through on the midpalate, and it closes with a zing of herbaceousness and granitic minerality. There’s serious structure here, with prominent but ripe tannins, and we have no doubt this will go for a decade or more if you can keep your hands off. Serve slightly chilled at 60 degrees out of Bordeaux stems, and I can’t think of a wine better suited to simply prepared lamb with rosemary. This is just flat-out one of the best young Cornas bottlings we’ve ever offered here. Stock up and never look back!