Patrick & Christophe Bonnefond Syrah Sensations du Nord 2021

The steep granite slopes of the northern Rhone make some of the world’s greatest Syrah, and they make very little of it. Patrick and Christophe Bonnefond farm a ten-hectare domaine, six or seven hectares of it on the hill of Cote-Rotie, and in recent years they have pulled back hard on new oak in pursuit of a purer, more Burgundian transparency. Sensations du Nord is their Syrah from vines on the slopes just outside the appellation boundary, bottled as IGP Collines Rhodaniennes and aged about a year in barrel. It delivers the northern Rhone signature, cracked black pepper and violets and a savory smoky snap over crunchy dark fruit, without asking you to wait a decade. A genuinely useful bottle: serious enough to think about, easy enough to simply drink.