2017 Domaine Alain Voge Cornas Les Vieilles Vignes 750 ml

“So sublime that you have to resist taking its hand and running away to elope.” Perhaps one of the most memorable wine reviews we’ve yet read, critic Neal Martin’s Vinous review of a 35-year-old Voge Cornas Les Vieilles Vignes perfectly captures what Alain Voge’s wines have meant to red wine collectors (ourselves included) for decades. 

Fast forward to the 2017 vintage, and this 97-point Les Vieilles Vignes continues to have one foot in the past and one in the future—embracing the estate’s impeccable traditional winemaking and enviable old vines, as well as a modern flourish that makes the wine tremendous to drink now. Though with all that tightly wound complexity, inky depth, and gorgeous structure, the 2017 will too likely tempt elopement in a few decades’ time. 

In Decanter’s article, “Best Rhône 2017 wines: The top scorers,” Alain Voge’s 2017 Vieilles Vignes was the highest-rated Cornas—tying with Domaine Clape, whose 2017 Cornas averages $170. That makes our $75 price on the 2017 Voge a collector’s dream, especially considering Decanter called the benchmark vintage especially “suited to those looking for ageworthy wines.”

A saturated midnight hue, it’s got perfumed notes of blackberry and blueberry, wild game, potpourri, and cracked black pepper. Broad and meaty, yet elegant and lifted at the same time, dense blackberry and blackcurrant notes pirouette with more subtle tones of candied violet, black olive tapenade, spice cake, and mouthwatering minerality. Tannins crescendo on the finish with impressive grip, which will meld seamlessly with the multilayered flavor profile with a bit of time.

We’ve always been huge fans of Alain Voge Cornas, and remain amazed that a wine with such history and true sense of place can be so affordable. 

The 2017 is a particularly special vintage of Les Vieilles Vignes because it included the grapes that normally go into Voge’s $170+ Les Vieilles Fontaines—a two-time 100-point wine that Robert Parker dubbed “one of the few perfect Cornas wines I have ever tasted.” 

Thanks to a severe drought in Cornas in 2017, grape yields were down by a third, but their quality soared. No wine benefitted more than Voge’s Les Vieilles Vignes, whose already increased concentration was amplified by the superb granitic terroir and 90-year-old vines that typically go into Voge’s rarest and most prized cuvée—for less than half its price. 

Wine Enthusiast declared 2017 Northern Rhônes “some of the best red wines in recent decades…already exhibiting a fantastic mix of concentration and elegance,” in its vintage report titled, “It’s a Golden Era for French Red Wines.” That was especially true for classicists like Alain Voge.

Dubbed “one of the superstars of Cornas” by the Wine Advocate, Alain Voge is world-famous as a master of Syrah. He’s been at it since 1965, when his father suddenly died, leaving Alain with the 15 acres of insanely steep, decomposed granite slopes that he would spend the next five decades making synonymous with his family name. 

The diminutive Voge has doubled his holdings over the years, and still lives in a small home on the estate, though he’s passed the winemaking to Albert Mazoyers, a Michel Chapoutier protégé and one of the most respected young wine producers in the Northern Rhône, and Lionnel Fraise.

Voge’s trademark longevity remains with every vintage, ensuring that as the wines age, they continue to “encapsulate everything you wish for in mature Cornas,” according to Vinous. This is as classic as it gets in the Northern Rhône for collectors and red wine lovers alike, minus the classically prohibitive cost of entry.