Domaine Georges Vernay, one of the northern Rhone's most celebrated estates and the house that revived Condrieu, also makes a small range of reds. Fleurs de Mai is a 100% Syrah bottled under the IGP Collines Rhodaniennes, from very old Syrah vines that Georges Vernay planted on the upper plateau above Condrieu. The site was a peach orchard before it was planted to vines, and the name Fleurs de Mai - 'May flowers' - refers to a variety of peach that once grew there. Granite-influenced soils and the estate's organic farming underpin the wine's fragrant, peppery style. The 2017 northern Rhone season was warm and early, giving ripe, generous fruit.

The Syrah is hand-picked and fermented in the estate's traditional manner, with maceration kept gentle to favour perfume and drinkability over extraction. The wine is raised in older oak so that no obvious woody character intrudes, preserving its medium ruby colour, fine tannins and exotic, peppery, almost tropical aromatics alongside blackberry and black raspberry fruit. Elevage is relatively short, in keeping with a wine designed to be enjoyed within a few years of release rather than for long ageing. Malolactic fermentation completes naturally, and the result is a light-framed, savoury, gulpable northern Rhone Syrah.