Julien Pilon, Cornas, Elegance Caillou

I would be drinking this now, it’s good - meaty, olives, black fruits - but I don’t think it has the complexity to suggest it’s getting better. Nice enough and a good example at a reasonable price point.

2 hour decant. Brooding nose of black cherry, black plum, and dried mint and boiled ham notes. Palate delivers a punch of dark cherry, sour acidity, and dry black fruits followed by black olive spreading across the tongue. Broad tannins and strong leather on the finish with black fig and oak following. Went well with duck but less enjoyable on its own.

30 minute decant. Nose of dark cherry, fruit rollup, and leather. Layers of both tart and baked cherry with a fat texture flow into chewy and chalky tannins with roses, peppered beef, and fresh sorrel. Great with a burger, little less enjoyable once the food's gone.

Great from the first sip, balance, complexity, great fruit, good acid, lively, medium body, drank with chicken wings with dry rub and barbecue sauce, guacamole, plaintains and cornbread, fun to drink, 13.5% abv, Pilon makes some really good wines, would drink again if I could find it. I love Syrah with barbecue.

I have to say, I don't get the hype around Pilon. 2nd bottle of his (first was the 2015 L'elegance) and these are big, very extracted, oaky, brooding. You want it to be better but even after a couple hours it just never really gets there.

I got excited when I located a bit of this wine after reading up on Pilon on JLL's website. The wine comes from old-vine Cornas (~1950s) rented from Elie Bancel and, evidently, it is raised in 1-year-old and 2-3-year-old oak casks. I bought a few for science! The first bottle was a bit reductive at first, then fresh but without much depth; not much better than a Cotes-du-Rhone. This bottle was larger, deeper, more full of material, but with a …

Tasted double blind from small bottles from Zak. This has a lot of oak on the nose and the fruit and flavors seem somewhat generic. Similar on palate. Day 2: this has improved a lot and has moved from downright bad into ok - pretty good but not excellent. The nose still shows a lot of oak with a heacy toast but behind that there is nice violets, sweet and maybe a bit too ripe blue and purple berry fruit, …