Jean-Claude Fayolle Les Dionnieres Hermitage Rouge 2015
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Delicious with grilled red meat such as venison or lamb and most cheeses.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From a lieu-dit situated at the bottom of the slope, the 2015 Hermitage Les Dionnieres is a complex, savory wine, offering up notes of grilled marinated beef with undertones of cassis. Earthy and tannic, this is an uncompromising vin de garde that will require several years in the cellar to blossom. Rating: 94+
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Wine Enthusiast
Ripe, luscious black-cherry and berry notes are fresh and perfumed, accented by anise, violet and dried herb. It's plush and silky on the palate but anchored by crisp acidity and finely edged, persistent tannins. Enjoyable now for its youthful, primary side, it should develop more savory complexity from 2025 and hold further.
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Wine Spectator
Solid, with a charcoal and anise frame around a core of dark plum and blackberry confiture flavors. Ganache and loamy grip carry the finish. Best from 2018 through 2025.
Domaine Jean-Claude & Nicolas Fayolle is located in the village of Gervans, 5 kilometers north from Tain-l'Hermitage in the Drome department. Nicolas Fayolle represents the 3rd generation of the family - he obtained a degree in "Viticulture- Oenology" and "Commercial science". He studied in the Macon region and joined the family estate in 2003. His father, Jean-Claude, helped convert the estate from Apricot to Grape growing.
All the vineyards are tended and harvested manually due to the incline of the slopes. Treatment of the vines is limited to better manage the soil erosion. The “cuvees” are produced from specific parcels and they neither destem nor use new oak barrels to preserve each “cuvee’s” typicity.
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.