This wasn’t fun. Lean, minimalistic, austere, bordering on nasty. A trace of fizz, mouth drying. A faulty bottle, or deliberately aimed at the natty crowd?
1 Like
Probably a combination of nattiness and the lean vintage. I’ve never been a fan of these wines.
Balthazar made great Cornas in 2021 
1 Like
This worries me a bit, now, might have to sample some ‘21’s I have
I meant to be honest but reassuring haha. I think you should have faith in a lot of the wines from the better producers. For example, I bought several bottles of Clape Cornas after tasting some, but the '21 Clape Vin Des Amis, while still very good in my opinion, isnt the impressive, great value it normally is, and is soemthing I want to drink in the near term (even though I think it can age nicely in a lot of vintages).
From what I tasted while in France, the vintage is much better than a lot of the reviews suggest.
Just reading through JLL’s vintage report for 2021, it seems that traditionally warmer areas like Hermitage and Cornas were more successful at achieving ripeness. JLL wrote about Hermitage: “Life was less complicated than at Côte-Rôtie, the wines deeper than their northern cousins, and, alongside Cornas, came through as one of the top two appellations of the Northern Rhône 2021.”
Top producers in all areas who spent special care in harvesting and selection produced fine wines. Again JLL:
"There is something of a lottery effect, though, so careful selection will be necessary. Did a grower treat as fast as possible; did he/she handle a degrading canopy soon enough, and correctly? Did they throw away enough grapes, did they revert to hand harvesting instead of allowing a machine to bring in all sorts of below par matter?
"In the cellar, did they drain away some of the juice to intensify the rest, or bleed juice off the skins – the saignée method, more usually applied on rosé? Did they wait and see whether to extend the macerations as the content held up better than expected? Bottling: being a classic cool vintage in style, were they patient enough to allow the wines to amplify during their raising?
“2021 is certainly a vintage with some jolies choses, and a higher level of aromatics than the sunbaked vintages, and potentially good access to the true terroir in the wines. The clarity of the fruit in 2021 leads me to believe that the wines do not require that much oak.”
2 Likes
Ok, I had to open a bottle…for science! (my experience backs your theory)
1 Like
Thanks for the science!
FWIW, this is what JLL said on Gonon:
J GONON: OBLIGED TO ABANDON ONE HECTARE FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER
From the southern sector, JEAN GONON commented: “Mauves and Tournon didn’t suffer especially from the April frost, but St Jean de Muzols was very hard hit – the old vines, everything, the plants blackened. Those vines started to re-awaken a little one month later – in May there was only slow growth across the whole vineyard, so we took the opportunity to pickaxe the soils. Then it rained, and was very hot, and rapid vegetation growth happened. We have found a shortage of labour in 2021 due to Covid.
2021 is a year of diluted grapes; we harvested the Syrah on 27 to 29 September, which was followed by hail, so we continued on 6 October, then there was 130 mm [5.2 in] of rain. There was no more taste in the grapes, and we abandoned that part of the harvest at St Jean – it was the same vineyard that frosted, and the vines were fragile all through the year. We left one hectare of harvest, about 30 hl, the first time we have had to leave crop behind. Spice-pepper in the wines is the sign of a cold vintage.”
These 2021’s don’t sound like my preferred habitat.
Very grateful to hear from someone else who had the Thomas Farge 2020 St. Joseph. Tough as nails is a good descriptor, I couldn’t figure out whether it was me or the wine!
By day 4 it had softened a bit and started to emit some fragrance. Had me thinking maybe it’s a long term ager. I do have another and will sock away for a long time!
1 Like
Sounds like it, I gave it two days and then duly forgot I still had it waiting for me until over a week later. 
I did not attempt to see where it had gone after that, lol.
Good to know that some fragrance began to appear though, that’s encouraging.