2017 Brise Cailloux
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Tasting notes
Dark, glistening ruby. Aromas of smoke-tinged dark berries and pungent flowers are sharpened by building mineral and spice flourishes. Spicy and focused on the palate, offering juicy cherry, blackberry and violet pastille flavors along with subtle olive and cracked pepper nuances. Fleshes out with air while maintaining energy and finishes spicy and long, displaying sharp clarity, steadily building tannins and repeating florality. (made with de-stemmed fruit and fermented and aged in large concrete eggs)
Critic scores
Average Score
Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
A classic wine from Barret, the 2017 Cornas Brise Cailloux offers beautiful blue fruits, liquid violets, game, white pepper, and spring flower notes. Complex, medium to full-bodied, beautifully complex, with fine tannins, it's going to benefit from just short-term cellaring and drink brilliantly for over a decade. Lovers of wild, feral, and uber-classic Cornas (or Syrah for that matter) need to know Domaine du Coulet and vigneron Matthieu Barret. These aren’t for those looking only for pure, clean fruit and the wines are loaded with gamey, violet, and searing peppery notes. They’re singular, high quality, and well worth seeking out.
The 2017 Cornas Brise Cailloux is Barret's first vintage of this cuvée to be made without wood at all. With its crisp redcurrant and tea leaf notes, silky tannins and modest 13% alcohol, it's the anti-Cornas Cornas. Medium to full-bodied, it feels delicate on the palate, then finishes tart and long.
Lovely earthy, meaty nose. Quite wild and spicy with a definite hamster-cage note that encroaches on the finish, and while it doesn't exactly ruin the whole party, I'd prefer a cleaner style. (RH)