Lastly, the 2019 Cornas La Sabarotte is a candidate for the wine of the vintage in Cornas, and it’s about as thrilling as they come. Much riper and sexier, it reminds me of a great Hermitage from the Meal lieu-dit and has lots of cassis and blackberry fruits, notes of violets, ground pepper, iron, and some gamey meat, full-bodied richness, velvety tannins, and an awesome finish. It’s a big, rich, sexy wine that will take 4-5 years to shed some baby fat and have two decades of overall longevity.

Inky violet color. A hugely complex bouquet evokes ripe dark fruits, olive, floral, bacon fat and vanilla, and smoky mineral and tobacco notes appear with aeration. Stains the palate with deeply concentrated, spice- and mineral-accented bitter cherry, blueberry, dark chocolate and violet pastille flavors that show fine definition and back-end lift. Velvety, slowly building tannins frame an extremely long, subtly chewy finish that echoes the blue fruit and floral notes. -- Josh Raynolds

This packs lots of energy, with a core of red currant, blackberry and damson plum notes that are bristling with violet, savory, white pepper and olive accents. The long finish has mouthwatering cut as the chalky spine holds everything together. Best from 2024 through 2038. — J.M.

Bottled in June 2021, the 2019 Cornas la Sabarotte delivers huge doses of pristine blueberry and cherry fruit despite being aged in a combination of new and one-year-old barrels. It's full-bodied, rich and tannic but supple, with a long, lively finish. Stylistically, it nicely epitomizes what consumers have come to expect from the Courbis family. - Joe Czerwinski