Dumien Serrette, Cornas, "Patou"

Cornas is a place that doesn’t soften itself for anyone, yet one sip is all it takes for anyone—expert or not—to understand its magic. The village is a tight cluster of stone houses pressed against a massive granite amphitheater, its steep slopes rising so sharply above town you nearly have to lean back to see their tops. This is where Syrah grows on terraces carved by hand, tended vine by vine by families who’ve been here for centuries. Nicolas Serrette is one of them. He farms these hillsides exactly as his ancestors did—harvesting by hand, fermenting whole clusters, and pressing in a traditional wooden basket press that looks like it’s been in service since the 19th century. You taste every bit of that honesty in the 2023 Cornas Parou: cold blue fruit, violets, wild herbs, black olive, and that smoked-meat savoriness that rises straight from granite soil. It’s raw yet refined, powerful yet transparent—and the price-to-quality here is insane for what’s in the bottle. This is what great Cornas is all about.

Cornas sits at the southern end of the Northern Rhône, a compact amphitheater of decomposed granite that produces some of the most intense and soulful Syrah on earth. The appellation is among France’s smallest—just over 100 hectares—and by law it is exclusively red wine from 100% Syrah. The vineyards face east and southeast, catching the early sun while the granite soil regulates temperature and provides that unmistakable mineral backbone. Summers here are hot, the slopes are brutally steep, and everything must be done by hand. These conditions yield Syrah that is darker, more structured, and more wild-edged than anything in Saint-Joseph or Côte-Rôtie. Cornas is the “black wine” of the Rhône for a reason—dense, savory, and deeply tied to the rock it grows in.

From above, Patou is strikingly small—just a compact, steeply pitched parcel carved directly into broken granite. That’s Cornas: families holding onto a few precious rows of Syrah on terraces their ancestors built stone by stone. For generations, most growers sold their fruit upriver to houses like Delas, Jaboulet, and Chapoutier, and Nicolas’ father, Gilbert, did exactly that. But in the early 1980s, father and son decided it was time to bottle a Cornas that spoke directly from their own soil and their centuries of work. The Dumien family has lived and farmed in Cornas since 1515, and the winemaking remains resolutely traditional—hand harvesting, whole-cluster fermentation with native yeasts, and gentle basket pressing. ‘Parou’ (sometimes labeled ‘Patou’) is their most faithful expression of old-vine Syrah rooted in pure granite and sand, crafted with the same humility and precision that defined Cornas long before modern recognition arrived.

The 2023 Cornas Parou opens with soaring aromatics: blackberry, cold blue fruits, cracked pepper, violets, black olive, and cured meat. The palate is powerful yet impeccably balanced—dark fruit wrapped in savory spice, fine but firm tannins, and a long finish lined with warm granite and smoke. It’s delicious in its youth—just give it a 30-minute decant—and it will be absolutely stunning in 5–7 years for those with patience. Serve in Burgundy stems (my personal preference, though some prefer Bordeaux stems), just above cellar temperature. This wine loves air, food, and a table full of people.