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Guillaume Gilles

Guillaume’s Cornas is unfailingly expressive, deep, pow- erful, and spicy, humming with terroir and easily rivaling the greatest creations of the appellations old masters.

When Robert Michel, our long-time vigneron in Cornas, decided to retire after the 2006 vintage, he did us the enormous favor of introducing us to Guillaume Gilles, a young vigneron resident in Cornas who, it turns out was Michel’s protégé. In fact, not only did Robert Michel mentor the young Guillaume Gilles, he also leased his prime parcel in the Chaillot vineyard to him and provided his cave (with all its history and secrets!) for Gilles’ use. It has been, then, a nearly seamless transition for us from Michel to Gilles.

Guillaume Gilles is convinced that Cornas is at its best when one follows the most traditional of paths. Like Michel, he eschews the destemmer (in virtually all cases), works his vineyards by hand, ages his wine in old demi-muids and bottles without fining or filtering. His Cornas is as it should be and is exactly as we like it: brawny, sometimes austere, profound, sauvage. He cultivates his vineyards with an organic philosophy and his wines are made using the natural yeasts from his grapes. He produces three wines, two of which are in excruciatingly limited supply.

textured background of grapevines
Farming

Practicing organic

Treatments

Copper sulfate only

Ploughing

Annual hoeing and ploughing to maintain vineyard health

Soils

Granite and limestone-clay

Vines

Staked and head trained, vines were planted at 6,000 vines/ha in the 1870’s, 1950’s, 1976-1978, and 2009-2013.

Yields

Controlled through severe winter pruning, debudding, and an occasional green harvest, yields average c. 35-40 hl/ha

Harvest

Entirely manual, usually in mid-September

purchasing

Entirely estate fruit

Fermentation

Wines ferment spontaneously as whole clusters in concrete vats. Cuvaison lasts 20+ days

Extraction

Wines seem punch downs during cuvaison

Chaptalization

None

Pressing

Vertical basket press

Malolactic Fermentation

Spontaneous, in vat following alcoholic fermentation

Élevage

18 months in neutral 600 and 400-l demi-muids

Lees

Wines are racked off their gross lees after cuvaison and remain on their fine lees until assemblage prior to bottling

Fining and Filtration

All wines are unfined and unfiltered

Sulfur

No more than 60 mg/l total sulfur

Farming

Practicing organic

Treatments

Copper sulfate only

Ploughing

Annual hoeing and ploughing to maintain vineyard health

Soils

Granite and limestone-clay

Vines

Staked and head trained, vines were planted at 6,000 vines/ha in the 1870’s, 1950’s, 1976-1978, and 2009-2013.

Yields

Controlled through severe winter pruning, debudding, and an occasional green harvest, yields average c. 35-40 hl/ha

Harvest

Entirely manual, usually in mid-September

purchasing

Entirely estate fruit

Fermentation

Wines ferment spontaneously as whole clusters in concrete vats. Cuvaison lasts 20+ days

Extraction

Wines seem punch downs during cuvaison

Chaptalization

None

Pressing

Vertical basket press

Malolactic Fermentation

Spontaneous, in vat following alcoholic fermentation

Élevage

18 months in neutral 600 and 400-l demi-muids

Lees

Wines are racked off their gross lees after cuvaison and remain on their fine lees until assemblage prior to bottling

Fining and Filtration

All wines are unfined and unfiltered

Sulfur

No more than 60 mg/l total sulfur

Growers