Noël Verset began working the steep granite slopes of Cornas alongside his father in 1931, when he was twelve years old. He went on to make wine for more than seven decades, producing just one cuvée each year — a single blend from all his terroirs — in quantities that rarely exceeded 800 cases. Along with Auguste Clape and René Balthazar, Verset is credited with keeping the Cornas appellation alive during the decades when most vignerons had abandoned the hillsides for factory work. He was the first in the village to bottle under his own name rather than selling to négociants. He passed away in 2015 at the age of 95.

His methods were staunchly traditional: low yields, whole bunches, grapes tread by foot, fermentation in cement vats, fifteen months in old demi-muids. The style was marked by garrigue, olive, bay leaf, and black pepper, more herbal and savory where Clape’s wines ran chalky and smoldering. But the defining quality was balance. Vintage after vintage, regardless of conditions, Verset shaped wines of extraordinary consistency and elegance, never at the mercy of the weather.

This 1984 is pure syrah, over forty years old, from a period before Robert Parker’s spotlight brought international attention to Cornas. A bottle of genuine historical significance from one of the appellation’s founding voices, in its most evolved and contemplative state.