Cornas Brise Cailloux, Domaine du Coulet

Note:

Very deep colour.  Not quite black but not far off.  Very intense, vibrant scent with a huge hit of violetty perfume, then it calms and you get super primary notes of crushed red and black fruit, kirsch and tons and tons of lavender.   Over three nights open, just with a cork shoved unceremoniously back in the bottle, this showed no aromatic degradation at all, although the evolution from night to night and glass to glass was huge.   Very intense scent at all points ranging from fresh black currant through black cherry in the fruit spectrum, through raw steak and marmite in the savoury, through sage and lavender in terms of the floral aspect…..to wet granite, iron and ink in the….errr…..mineral sphere.   No kidding, this has a freakishly complex scent and the fact it doesn’t seem to oxidise at all is surely a great sign of ageworthiness.   The palate delivers a hit of vibrant blood orange, cherry and spice, running through savoury and liquoricey hints through to meaty compact, granitey, inky depths.  There is a textural softness about this wine that makes it (relatively) easy to consume even at this young age, but it’s a pretty wild wine and really needs time to soften and become a bit more house trained.  By night three the tannins, whilst very well managed and fine, were significant and prominent.  I’d give it 5 years++ to start with and probably way more.   I can’t help but feel that this blows away a lot of much more expensive Northern Rhone wines and makes a great argument for not using new wood at all with Syrah……