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Les Vieilles Fontaines
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Alain
Voge
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Voge
Placard - Cornas/St. Pernay
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For
additional pictures click the thumbnails
above. |
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With
over 70 parcels of vines totaling seven hectares,
it is no wonder that Alain Voge sometimes seems distracted.
Half in jest, he says that the reason he harvests
so late is to figure out which vines are his. Lovably
comic yet humble, honest, dedicated to his domaine,
and incredibly hardworking, Alain Voge and his wife
Elaine have been estate-bottling Cornas since the
mid-1950s. In spite of producing what most critics,
Parker and the Wine Spectator included, call some
of the finest wines in the world, the Voges remain
the kind of people one wishes one had for grandparents. As
the fourth generation of the Voge family to make
wine in Cornas, Alain inherited his domaine from
his father at a time when it was hardly worthwhile
to harvest the grapes. After World War II a bushel
of local peaches was worth more than a case of Cornas,
so Alain supplemented his income by farming fruits
and vegetables on the Rhône Valley floor. Only
since the mid-1980s has Cornas been truly economic
to produce, but the Voges stubbornly tended their
vines through the darker days and made their superb
wine regardless of its market value. Today their
seven hectares, out of a total of only 90 hectares
currently under cultivation in Cornas, represents
a total production of barely 2,000 cases; enough
to provide a modest living for Alain and Elianne,
who now farm only their vines and a small plot of
Cornas' other appellation contrôlée,
petits pois (green peas) de Cornas.
Almost
all of the vines at Domaine Voge are 50+ years old,
meaning that virtually all of Voge's production is
labelled Vieilles Vignes. Steeply sloping like Côte
Rôtie and facing south and east, the terroir
of Cornas is dense granitic schist rather than mica-based
as in Côte Rôtie, giving the wines a
more subtle elegance in the mouth and a bit more
high-toned purple fruit in flavor.
In
Voge's rather ramshackle cellars, Syrah is transformed
into an ethereal and hedonistic beverage. Not the
intellectual approach of Gerin, but heartfelt wine
as though the ancient single-staked vines were telling
their own story of drought, frost, heat, and Alain's
loving care. At harvest the grapes are gathered in
small flat bins, destemmed, and put into concrete
vats for fermentation. Cuvaison (or skin fermentation)
lasts nearly a month at temperatures up to 30ºC,
after which the wines are drained into oak barrels
(only 25% new)
for malolactic fermentation and 15 to 18 months of
aging. In excellent vintages Voge bottles the special
cuvee Les Vieilles
Fontaines , harvested from a parcel of 85 year old
vines facing due south on one of Cornas' steepest
slopes.
Voge's
wines have been at the very top level of their appellation
for a generation. Deeply colored with a purple hue,
they smell of freshly crushed blackberries with a
sauvage (or wild), gamey element. The flavors are
dense and layered, with fresh black, briary fruit,
and a velvety,
jammy intensity. Fully integrated, ripe tannins promise
tremendous aging potential for those willing to wait
15 to 20 years. Alain and Elianne Voge are thrilled
with the new popularity of wines from the northern
Rhône, yet humble enough to remember the most
difficult days when their wines were nearly worthless
on the market. Today he quickly sells out of each
new vintage, but maintains a moderate approach to
pricing. "My only wish," he sighs, "is
that more young people of Cornas would stay to finish
all this work we started. Our wines can be great,
you know!"
Wines
Produced:
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Domaine
Alain Voge Cornas Vieilles Vignes
Domaine Alain Voge Cornas Les Vieilles Fontaines
Domaine Alain Voge Saint- Péray Cuvee Fleur de Crussol
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