Clape’s flagship 2015 Cornas is enormously complex and compelling. Almond skin, cherries, blood and herbal notes all combine on the nose, while on the palate this medium to full-bodied wine is firmly tannic but ripe and balanced, with a rich, velvety and nearly endless finish.

Opaque ruby. Heady, smoke- and spice-tinged aromas of dark berry preserves, candied licorice and olive; an intense mineral quality adds urgency. Chewy, broad and focused on the palate, offering appealingly sweet boysenberry and cassis flavors and powerful spicecake and floral pastille flourishes. In a lush, decadent but lively style and not at all outsized. Finishes smooth, smoky and extremely long, displaying repeating spiciness and velvety tannins.

Generous red fruit with more open, forward style than the 2015. Yet the structure is almost austere in its tannic toughness. (RH)

Full bottle 1,320 g. Deep purple still. Decidedly tough finish. Definitely dry but overall quite transparent. Yes it's northern Rhône Syrah and is quite concentrated but it’s certainly short on charm. (JR)

The grand vin of the estate is the 2015 Cornas, and it's even more inky colored than the Renaissance, with a saturated purple/bluish color. It offers a truly profound bouquet of black cherries, melted asphalt, ground pepper, exotic flowers and graphite, as well as the classic iodine/bloodiness I always find in this cuvée. Full-bodied, beautifully concentrated, and seamless, with sweet tannin and a stacked mid-palate, it has an almost Hermitage-like liquid rock character, shocking elegance and purity, and a huge finish. This is Cornas at its finest – hats off to the Clape family! It's relatively accessible now, yet I suspect it will close down with a few years of bottle age, so try one (or two) now and save the rest for after 2025. This tiny, yet undeniable reference-point estate in Cornas produces one of the most singular, distinct wines in the world. Run over the past few decades by Pierre-Marie Clape, the estate is slowly transitioning over the young, talented Olivier Clape. This is a bastion of traditional winemaking and the wines are not destemmed, see long fermentations, and are aged in ancient barrels and casks. The 2015s are certainly on par with what was accomplished in 2009 and 2010, and these are incredible, legendary wines in the making.