Cornas Flashcards
Thierry Allemand story
By the 1980s, a slow insurgency of passionate winemakers started to resuscitate the vineyards, with Thierry Allemand deep in the fray. Thierry was working at Domaine Robert Michel & learning from two Cornas legends, Joseph Michel and Noël Verset. Little by little, he began acquiring vineyard parcels that had long since been abandoned, rescuing some, buying others, and renting the rest. Insufferable work as it was, he dove into the project courageously: he cleared over-taken vineyards of weeds and scrub brush, reinforced terraces, rebuilt walls, and replanted. All by hand. Though it took him fifteen years before he could afford to fully dedicate himself to his own domaine (he earned his living as an electrician!), the quiet, monastic Thierry Allemand had already become a legend. Founded in 1982.
Thierry Allemand production
*650 cases annually
*Farms organically, working steep, terraced vineyards all by hand (no tractor!)
* Dense plantings naturally reduce yields (< 30 hectoliters per hectare)
* All wines are fermented in stainless steel and open-top wooden vats
* Stems left on cluster during fermentation
* Punch-downs by foot
* All wines are vinified separately
* Wines aged in foudres and barriques for 24 months before final blending and bottling
* 18 months to 2 years on its lees
* Finished wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered
* Very low doses of sulfur, sometimes none at all
Thierry Allemand wines
Cornas “Les Chaillots”: (2.02 ha)
Cuvée made up of all younger vines (5-40y/o)
limestone, granite
Cornas “Reynard”: (2.02 ha)
Cuvée made up of all older vines, a portion of which were purchased from Noël Verset (34-90y/o)
decomposed granite
His wines display the classic Cornas dark berries, woodsmoke, dried herb and black olive flavors, leavened by flint and pit fruits, with amazing freshness and definition. No other grower’s Cornas combines concentration, firm structure and elegance like his.
Thierry Allemand “Sans Soufre”
Labelled as regular Cornas but has no addition of sulfur
Only produced in 1998, 1999, 2001, 2004 and 2011 (as far as we know)
Noel Verset origin
Verset worked continuously in Cornas for 75 years, having begun with his father Emmanuel in 1931 at age 12, after receiving his school certificate. The first wine wearing his label, from a rented vineyard, came in 1943. He subsequently both purchased land and inherited the family domaine, and he never departed from the old tradition of producing just one Cornas from a blend of lieux-dits. This approach undoubtedly contributed to the astonishing balance of his wines.
In the 1990s and especially in the last 25 years, Mr. Verset’s wines came to be prized around the world.
His last vintage was 2006.
Noel Verset Wines
“I found Noël, when I was tasting, in practically every Cornas cellar there was at the time, and I knew from the first visit that I’d found something special,” Mr. Lynch said in an interview. “He made a Cornas that was dark and intense, but with a silky texture that no one else had.”
* a master of winemaking over vintage variation
* Verset’s crus are all located on steep, terraced slopes of granite, sand, and limestone, were among Cornas’ most revered.
*Chaillots to the north gave him black fruits, richness and structure, while Sabarotte to the south gave him finesse. His Champelrose vines contributed red fruits and an earthy character.
*in the hands of Verset, the sum was always greater than its parts.
His methods were quintessentially traditional: harvesting fully ripe, low-yield fruit; no destemming of the grape bunches; crushing by foot; vinification in small concrete vats for 15 to 18 days, and basket pressing. Aging was in used demi-muid, about twice the size of a piéce, for 15 months. He expressed his belief in this barrel size to John Livingstone-Learmonth: “The wine ages more slowly, and just has more time.”
Who did Noel Verset sell his vines to?
He sold Thiérry Allemand some vines in Reynard.
Initially Noël intended to sell the Sabarotte vines to Tardieu-Laurent (to whom he was also selling wine), but an agricultural commission blocked the sale. Finally, they were sold to Clape and Courbis.
And in the mid-2000s, he sold his prized half hectare in Chaillots, planted 1912, to his nephew Franck Balthazar.
Domaine Clape story
The Clapes have been vignerons for many generations, but the infamous grower strikes of 1906 and 1907 forced Auguste’s grandfather out of the Languedoc and into the Northern Rhône to start anew from practically nothing. The Clapes rebuilt their fortunes, terrace by terrace, along the steep, western slopes of the Rhône River. For many years, the majority of growers in Cornas sold their fruit to négociants. Auguste was the first to bottle his own wine, which eventually paved the way for such contemporary superstars as Thierry Allemand. Without pretense or fanfare, Auguste, the former mayor of Cornas, was a stately picture of grace and magnanimity—a no-nonsense wise man who never rested on his laurels and sought to better himself and his wines each year until his passing in 2018 at the age of 93. Today, his son, Pierre-Marie, and grandson, Olivier, carry on his legacy with honor and integrity.
Domaine Clape production
*2,500 cases annually
*8 hectares
*Reynards, La Côte, Geynale, Tézier, Petite Côte, Les Mazards, Patou, Pied La Vigne, Chaillot, and Sabarotte
*only old vines
*entirely by hand
*lets grapes get very ripe
*Individual parcels are vinified separately via whole-cluster fermentation.
*Long élevages of twelve to twenty-two months in old, oval foudres add depth to the natural complexity of the wines.
Domaine Clape wines
Greatest links to traditional Cornas
Thiérry Allemand and Auguste Clape’s son Pierre-Marie
Guillaume Gilles
Vincent Paris
