Wine Reviews
2011 Cornas, Domaine Alain Verset
Cornas is of course made from syrah, which in the Rhône often tastes as if it has been seasoned with crushed black peppercorns. If it’s a good wine there ought also be a skein of mineral, and, if the wine is stil young or youngish, a dense, purplish-black lick of fruit.
This Alain Verset Cornas hits all the right notes at first whiff. Verset has a tiny vineyard holding of two hectares but boutique is not the right word here. He used to make wine in his spare time, and worked in a factory for his day job.
“At a time when Cornas had less of a following he was actually selling some of his wine in bulk,” says Siobhán Astbury of Haynes, Hanson & Clark, his importer. “Now he is a fulltime winemaker, in his 60s. It’s a tiny set-up – a two-man band with him and his daughter.”
The wine is pressed using an old-fashioned basket press, which helps to preserve a sense of texture and place, and it’s superb. Already drinking well now, or it will keep awhile. If you don’t like grouse, find another excuse to drink it – such as rillettes on white baguette with the sting of cornichons. Or a beef and olive daube.
Victoria Moore in The Telegraph on 18th August, 2017