2017 Cornas Empreintes
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Tasting notes
One of the flagship releases is the 2017 Cornas Empreintes, which comes from the steep, granite hillsides of Cornas, sees 25% stems, and is brought up in 20% new French oak. This full-bodied, concentrated effort boasts a deep purple hue, notes of peppery herbs, plums, blackberries, and smoked game, building tannins, and just about overflowing amounts of character. It’s a stunning, brilliant Cornas that’s going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age and cruise for 15+ years. Bravo! One of my favorite estates in Cornas (although the domaine is in Châteaubourg), Domaine Durand is run with incredible talent and passion by Eric and Joël Durand, who also get consulting help from Fabien Ozanne. This estate falls in the quasi-modern camp and produces beautiful wines that have pure, clean fruit and classic profiles. In general, the wines are mostly destemmed and the new oak percentage falls into the 15-25% category. These are terrific wines that offer pleasure in their youth yet also age gracefully.
Critic scores
Average Score
Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jeb Dunnuck
More reviews and scores
The 2017 Cornas Empreintes is full-bodied, with a mass of purple raspberries and cassis that comes across as concentrated and ripe. It's a big wine but neither overly muscular nor fat, with a fine sense of balance and a silky, lingering finish. Drink it over the next decade or so.
Cask sample. Tasted blind. Slightly reductive rubberiness to the nose, but there is excellent fruit purity beneath, with a strong blueberry character. Powdery but potent tannic grip on the finish, but limited complexity. All about fruit for now – worth revisiting to see how that develops. (RH)