Tonight,in celebration of a major research discovery, I cooked some
venison steaks and went down to the cellar for a Bambi wine, coming back
with:

1995 Chapoutier Cornas
nose: initially, simple blueberry fruit, later developing green olive notes
palate: medium body, high acidity, smooth tannins, very simple
initially, later losing most of its fruit while taking on a green olive
character

This wine was purchased lo those many years ago, back before I'd
discovered this group in fact, when I still put faith in the
pronoucements of the Pope of Monkton. Since then, I've learned that
Chapoutier's wines from that era are not held in high esteem by all who
love the wines of the N Rhone, so it was with some trepidation that I
opened this bottle. For the first 30 minutes, it was impossible to
identify the wine as a N Rhone Syrah, let alone a Cornas. Later, the
olive character began to proclaim its origins, but at the same time I
noticed a loss of fruit. In the end, this wine might improve over the
next 1-2 years, but I wouldn't hold it much longer than that, as there
are signs that it may begin fading soon, too. In his review of this
wine, RMP was very positive and forecast a lifetime until 2016. Unless
your cellar is colder than mine or you won't miss the fruit, I think
that that prediction is overly optimistic. In addition, I never got a
sense of Cornasness from this wine, as I do/did with the wines of Verset
and Clape.

Mark Lipton
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