2014 Cornas, Lieu-Dit Les Eygats, Ferraton Père & Fils, Rhône
Critics reviews
Jeb Dunnuck - 30/12/2016
About this WINE
Maison Ferraton
Maison Ferraton is a very fine Northern Rhône wine estate that was run for many years by Michel Ferraton. It is now run by Samuel Ferraton, the fourth generation of the family, who worked for a while in conjunction with Chapoutier frères. The firm has vineyard holdings in Hermitage and Crozes-Hermitage and its wine cellars are located immediately behind those of Marc Sorrel in the heart of Tain l`Hermitage.
Samuel Ferraton is very much an artisan winemaker- yet he employs many modern techniques that he picked up while working with the Chapoutiers.
Consequently, the wines are a marvellous marriage of the old and the new, displaying good structure and well-defined fruit characters, allied with very judicious and limited use of new oak. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered.
Cornas
Cornas is a small appellation, just 150 hectares, located south of St Joseph. It’s on the west side of the river. The name “Cornas” comes from an old Celtic dialect term, meaning “burnt land”, so it’s no surprise that on the steep terraces here, facing south, temperatures are significantly higher than those in Hermitage, which is just 7km away.
The granite soils are home to the Syrah grape, producing reds that sit somewhere between those of Hermitage and Côte-Rôtie. These are strong and powerful wines, with nervy acidity and a robust, rustic charm to them. Their prominent tannins mean that they often demand time in the cellar to express their underlying elegance and complexity.
Syrah/Shiraz
A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.
It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.
South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.
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Description
Vertiginously perched above the village of Cornas the lieu-dit of ‘Les Eygats’ is a slab of south-east facing granite. Aged for fourteen months in demi-muid, the youthful wine is marked by a nose of raspberry and jambon cru, its sweet and savoury tension matched on the palate where sour cherries provide the dominant note, violets and pot pourri lending support.
Drink 2018-2024.
Simon Field MW, Wine Buyer
The 2014 vintage left the blocks with great speed, energised by a rainy winter which had topped up water reserves, and then by a dry and exceptionally mild spring. The pace calmed down thereafter, and thoughts of precocity eventually gave way to a relatively late harvest. Challenges were imposed by a mid-season which was by turns rainy and unseasonably cool, with rot a far from negligible danger and the somewhat unusual prospect of September being the warmest month of the year.
Not quite an Indian Summer, in point of fact, but warm enough to ensure timely ripening and a dry harvest. The whites have poise and finely etched fruit and the reds are balanced and approachable. Winemaker Damien Brisset, whilst acknowledging the challenges of the vintage, is more than pleased with the results. Careful to avoid over-extraction, he has allowed each commune and each lieu-dit to impose its personality on its wines and the results are impressive indeed.
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