Winemaker Notes
Pair this wine with rare or medium-cooked games, marinated meats and spicy stews. We recommend opening this bottle between one and three hours before drinking.
Blend: 100% Syrah
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Crafted from vines planted in two sectors of the hill of Hermitage, Les Bessards (seven hectares) and Les Grandes Vignes (two hectares and the highest vines of the hill), the 2022 Hermitage Domaine des Tourettes reveals a pure, elegant bouquet of flowers, dark berries and spices complemented with licorice notes. Medium to full-bodied, layered and refined, it has velvety, fine-grained tannins with an energetic mid-palate enhanced by bright acids, concluding with a long, ethereal and elegant finish. This stunning Hermitage exudes a lot of energy and freshness and will benefit from some time to integrate its élevage. It promises to be a remarkable bottle. It was matured entirely in barrels, 25% new, and only the Les Grandes Vignes portion underwent fermentation with 80% whole bunches.
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Wine Spectator
A sleek, smoky, sultry red, with violet high tones gilding a dense, ripe palate of wild berries alongside a woodsy character. A salty mineral vein runs through, with an ample robe of grilled apple wood and spices that will further integrate with time. Polished tannins give this a solid frame, which is still a little tight. Best from 2026 through 2035.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Blackberries, cassis, leather, and graphite notes all define the 2022 Hermitage Domaine Des Tourettes, a perfumed, complex, classic expression of Hermitage. With medium to full-bodied richness, tons of sweet fruit, ripe tannins, and a great finish, give it a few years.
Rating: 93+
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James Suckling
Complex roasted nose with deep red fruit aromas. A polished Hermitage that is quite accessible for an appellation with the reputation for needing long aging. Fleshy and elegant, with restrained tannins on the medium-bodied palate. Then, just when you think it is a bit easy-going, the structured stony finish comes through to remind you who's boss. Mostly from the bottom of the Les Bessards section of the hill. Matured 100% in Burgundian oak barrels, of which a quarter were new, for 15 months. Drinkable now, but best from 2025.
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Tasting Panel
The 2022 Hermitage Domaine des Tourettes unzips ripe red fruit, black cherry and black plum notes alongside stemmy gradations and a flicker of black pepper. Medium-bodied, taut and structured, the savory 2022 requires at least three more years in a cool cellar for the firm tannic core to mellow.
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.