Tardieu-Laurent Crozes-Hermitage Vieilles Vignes 2009
-
Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Michel Tardieu’s 2009 red Northern Rhone offerings still have a long wait in barrel before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. They all reveal deep colors as well as abundant concentration, structure and power. I thought the best cuvees were the Cornas, St.-Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage and Hermitage. The Hermitage and Cornas appear capable of 15 or more years of evolution, and the Crozes-Hermitage and St.-Joseph should last at least a decade. The Cote Rotie Vieilles Vignes exhibited great fruit, but it was not a sensational wine in comparison with the other efforts.
Range: 90-93
Other Vintages
2016-
Wine
Spectator -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
Wine
Spectator -
Wine
Enthusiast
Tardieu-Laurent is very much an "artisan" producer, making between half a dozen and 20 or so barrels of each wine. The majority of the wines are from the southern Rhône although superb cuvees of Cote Rôtie and Hermitage are also produced. The wines are all aged in small oak casks (often 100% new) and bottled with no fining nor filtration. Michel Tardieu proclaims himself as a confirmed terroirist, insisting that his aim with each appellation is to express powerfully the fruit and sense of place, never masking these factors with wood.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
One of the smallest and most important Syrah regions of northern Rhone, Hermitage is practically one single south-facing slope of crushed granite, thinly covered with varied, yet well-charted soil types. Many climats (well identified parcels) exist within Hermitage and while some smaller producers make single climat Syrahs, some larger ones blend to make one balanced expression of the appellation.
Though the AC regulations allow the addition of up to 15% white grapes to a red Hermitage, in practice it is usually made from Syrah alone. Winemaking is pretty traditional—or you might say historic—with hot fermentations and aging in older barrels of various sizes. The best wines, characterized by deep, dense and sexy flavors of black fruit, cocoa, licorice and tobacco, have massive textures and a solid 10-20 years aging potential.
The region of Hermitage is totally enclosed; the only place it could go really is to literally fall down its own hill into the city of Tain or the Rhone River. Soil erosion is a problem and terraces exist alongside the hill in order to keep the earth in place. Crozes-Hermitage encloses the region entirely to its north and south.
While Hermitage seems synonymous with some of the best Syrah on the planet, actually about one third of the wine produced here comes from white grapes. The full, lush and robust Marsanne or the less common, but almost more charming, Roussanne create wonderful whites in which the best have great potential for aging, like the reds.