2017 Jean-Luc Colombo Vallon de l'Aigle Cornas Rhone Valley 750 ml

The tiny Northern Rhône appellation of Cornas rivals Hermitage and Côtie-Rôtie for Syrah supremacy, and perhaps no one has contributed more to the area’s majesty than winemaker Jean-Luc Colombo. 

He has been anointed the “King of Cornas,” and his stunning blackberry-and-lavender drenched 2017 Vallon de l'Aigle shows why he deserves the crown. 

A hyper-rare micro-bottling, Vallon l’Aigle represents the culmination of his lifetime of experience on the vertiginous slopes of Cornas. Produced only in exceptional vintages and sourced from a single high-altitude parcel of 70-year-old-vines totaling less than an acre, it stands alongside benchmarks like Chave’s Hermitage or Guigal’s La Las as paragons of Northern Rhône greatness—and the 2017 is as phenomenal as any he’s ever made. 

Wine Enthusiast lavished 97 points upon this powerhouse red, but on some level scoring a masterpiece like this feels silly—it’s like awarding points to the Mona Lisa.

Colombo is the quintessential modernist with a respect for tradition, and he earned an early reputation as one of the appellation’s visionaries, introducing methods like destemming and new-oak aging to usher in a new era for Cornas. The world soon noticed—and the rest is history. 

Many of Colombo’s top bottlings are already evolving in the cellars of savvy collectors and MICHELIN-starred restaurants, and there’s never enough to go around. That scarcity only intensifies with elusive unicorns like the Vallon de l’Aigle. Just four barrels were produced in 2017—a mere 40 cases of which made it to US shores.  Anyone lucky enough to snag a bottle is in for a drinking experience as riveting and profound as wine gets.