Domaine du Tunnel - Cornas Vin noir 2024

Intense, smoky, and intriguing on the nose. Beautiful concentration and purity of fruit with fine tannins, a fresh palate, and good length. Very elegant—a great success for this vintage—this wine is ripe, concentrated, refined, and well-balanced. Best enjoyed young or allowed to age for a moderate period.

Since taking over in 1994, Stéphane Robert—who does not come from a winemaking background—has established himself as a leading figure in the world of northern wines. He built his vineyard from the ground up; today it spans 11 hectares of highly fragmented plots, planted with Cornas, Saint-Joseph, Saint-Péray, and Condrieu vines. These vineyards run alongside an old railroad track and a 160-meter tunnel—still visible today—which gives the estate its name and within which a new winemaking facility and aging cellar were built in 2013.

Stéphane Robert runs his estate with great skill and crafts modern, precise wines that have established themselves as benchmarks within the Saint-Péray and Cornas appellations. These wines breathe new life into the style—sometimes rustic and sun-drenched—of these two small appellations. Stéphane brings touches of refinement to his deep, opaque Syrahs, achieved through precise grape ripeness, extraction, and aging. The wines also age very well.