Early Greats of Côte Rôtie & Cornas: Auguste Clape

Wednesday, October 30, 2013 at Bar Boulud, New York, New York

We ended our series of Early Greats of Côte Rôtie & Cornas at Bar Boulud in New York City, by focusing on Auguste Clape and his Cornas dating back to 1978.

This was the fifth of five remarkable evenings in 2013, each featuring a different legend of the Northern Rhône. The first four dinners, on April 3, April 17, June 10, and September 10 were homages to Noël Verset, Joseph Jamet, Georges & Robert Jasmin, and Marius Gentaz. 

For over nearly a half century, Clape has shown the world that the best Cornas rivals the best of Hermitage and Côte Rôtie. Auguste Clape was born in 1925, and became a vigneron on through marriage—his bride’s family owned 3.5 hectare in Cornas. At a time when virtually the entire production of Cornas’ small domaines was sold to negociants, he helped pioneer domaine bottling. He sold his first wine in bottle in the 1955 vintage, and by 1968, he had stopped selling to the negoces altogether.

The Clape domaine is one of the very few in the Northern Rhône to have established a strong reputation as a traditionalist in the 1970s, and to have maintained that reputation until today. In fact, the transition from Auguste to his son Pierre-Marie in the 1990s was seamless. While some of us know that Clape has been making near-perfect wines for decades, recent attention in the press has assured that the world now knows it too.

Wines Tasted — Auguste Clape Cornas