Domaine Guillaume Gilles 2019 Cornas AOC

Vineyard Notes: Gilles’s flagship Cornas comprises three separate parcels, which are all within the renowned vineyard of Chaillot, planted between the early-1950s and the mid-1970s: lower-lying Combe de Chaillot, with its sandier soils, offers more straightforward fruit; steep Les Terrasses, high up on the slope and poor of topsoil, contributes granitic punch and intense spiciness; and the also-terraced Grandes Mures, with its sun-soaking southward exposition, provides sumptuously dark-fruited bass notes and enhances the final blend’s overall structure.

Wine Notes: Guillaume vinifies and ages each parcel separately, blending them after an 18-month maturation in a blend of 400-liter and 600-liter oak casks of between five and 15 years of age. Clocking it at a modest-for-today 13.5% alcohol, the 2018 is concentrated and intense, but with a sense of dynamic freshness; Gilles compares it to 2016, albeit with slightly tamer tannins and earlier approachability.

Harvest: Manual
Stems: Yes; never destemmed
Yeast: Native
Fermentation: Concrete vats; racked off lees after
Aging: 18 months in neutral demi-muids
Fining: None
Filtering: None