Jean-Luc Colombo Cornas Les Ruchets 2018
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Wine Enthusiast
This inky, intensely plummy Syrah balances rich, pulsating black-fruit flavors against lip-smacking cassis and accents of tapenade, charcuterie and blood. Sourced from 90-year-old vines and aged 22 months in oak (15% new), the penetrating wine is framed by fine, firm tannins and lingering notes of vanilla, chocolate and earth. Drink 2023–2040.
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Wine Spectator
Nicely packed, with a mix of dark currant and blackberry compote notes that are still coiled up, along with bay, dark olive and racy sanguine flavors. Persistent and focused on the finish, with plenty in reserve. Best from 2023.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Maybe a touch more concentrated than Colombo's la Louvée bottling but also having a slightly coarser, more open-knit texture, the 2018 Cornas les Ruchets leads off with hints of mint, fennel, crushed stone and blackberries. It's full-bodied and rich, expansive and generous without crossing over into being jammy, with savory notes of black olives and roast meat to balance out the ripe fruit and a lingering, softly tannic finish.
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Wine & Spirits
Laure Colombo now works with her father, Jean-Luc, to make the wines at this Cornas estate. Les Ruchets remains the family’s flagship wine, from a steep, 5.4-acre plot of 90-year-old vines. She’s kept the house style clean and fruit-forward, working with destemmed berries fermented in stainless-steel tanks, but she’s pulled back on the new oak for aging, so that it’s easier to taste the quality of the fruit on release. That quality is clear in this 2018, which brims with a mix of fruit, florals and herbal notes that makes it feel wild and fresh. The flavors run deep but stay firm, trimmed by fine-grained tannins and bright acidity. As W&S editor Corey Warren said, “it’s complex and convincing right out of the bottle,” and it’s sure to become even more so with time in the cellar.
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Decanter
Very deep and intense. Ample blackberry and autumnal hedgerow fruit and creamy, ripe tannins. Powerful and imposing.
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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.