2020 Guillaume Gilles “Les Peyrouses” Vin de France
by Rosenthal
Original price
$ 71.99
-
Original price
$ 71.99
Original price
$ 71.99
$ 71.99
-
$ 71.99
Current price
$ 71.99
Hailing from the flats just to the east of the Cornas appellation proper, “Les Peyrouses” is a remarkable and unique wine: pure Syrah planted in the 1870s, during phylloxera’s initial outbreak, and constituting the very first grafted vines in the area. The soil is a mix of sand and clay, with loads of large limestone galets, and the wine Guillaume coaxes from these astonishingly old vines is so powerful in its fruit that he gives it twelve months élévage instead of eighteen. (Also, tellingly, he always presents it after his Cornas during visits to his cellar—a testament to its sheer power.) Although it is indeed a touch less
refined and complex than his two Cornas, “Les Peyrouses” is dazzling in its wildness—always unabashedly sauvage and full-throttle. The 2016, in the vein of its vintage-mate above, is less aggressively tannic than it sometimes can be, but there’s still no masking the sheer intensity of sappy black fruit these 140-year-old vines cannot help but yield. Its overall subtle differences with Cornas shouldn’t be overstated, as even an experienced Rhône lover would be hard-pressed not to identify it as anything but in a blind-tasting environment.
refined and complex than his two Cornas, “Les Peyrouses” is dazzling in its wildness—always unabashedly sauvage and full-throttle. The 2016, in the vein of its vintage-mate above, is less aggressively tannic than it sometimes can be, but there’s still no masking the sheer intensity of sappy black fruit these 140-year-old vines cannot help but yield. Its overall subtle differences with Cornas shouldn’t be overstated, as even an experienced Rhône lover would be hard-pressed not to identify it as anything but in a blind-tasting environment.