Winemaker Notes
Clear, straw gold color with green hints. Rich and complex, its aromas of apricot, Viennese pastries and violets blend into a remarkably powerful, lightly oaked bouquet. Lively and fresh at first, developing an elegant sensation of fullness, upheld by an agreeably light structure.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Captivating, with star fruit, anise, Jonagold apple, chamomile and heather honey aromas and flavors that rush along a creamy but detailed and focused frame. The long, finely tuned finish has fine buried minerality. Marsanne and Roussanne. Drink now through 2014. 941 cases made.
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Wine & Spirits
A blend of 65% marsanne and 35% rousanne grown at the top of the Hermitage hill, this has the richness of marzipan. It's very ripe, redolent of honey and pineapple, a generous companion for scallops in brown butter.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Another big wine is the rich 2007 Hermitage Chevalier de Sterimberg blanc, which offers a honeyed richness, tropical fruit, marmalade, quince, and white currant characteristics. Medium to full-bodied and long, it should evolve for 10-15 years.
Full-bodied and flavorful, white Rhône blends originate from France’s Rhône Valley. Today these blends are also becoming popular in other regions. Typically some combination of Grenache Blanc, Marsanne, Roussanne and Viognier form the basis of a white Rhône blend with varying degrees of flexibility depending on the exact appellation. Somm Secret—In the Northern Rhône, blends of Marsanne and Roussanne are common but the south retains more variety. Marsanne, Roussanne as well as Bourboulenc, Clairette, Picpoul and Ugni Blanc are typical.
A long and narrow valley producing flavorful red, white, and rosé wines, the Rhône is bisected by the river of the same name and split into two distinct sub-regions—north and south. While a handful of grape varieties span the entire length of the Rhône valley, there are significant differences between the two zones in climate and geography as well as the style and quantity of Rhône wines produced. The Northern Rhône, with its continental climate and steep hillside vineyards, is responsible for a mere 5% or less of the greater region’s total output. The Southern Rhône has a much more Mediterranean climate, the aggressive, chilly Mistral wind and plentiful fragrant wild herbs known collectively as ‘garrigue.’
In the Northern Rhône, the only permitted red variety is Syrah, which in the appellations of St.-Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, Hermitage, Cornas and Côte-Rôtie, it produces velvety black-fruit driven, savory, peppery red wines often with telltale notes of olive, game and smoke. Full-bodied, perfumed whites are made from Viognier in Condrieu and Château-Grillet, while elsewhere only Marsanne and Roussanne are used, with the former providing body and texture and the latter lending nervy acidity. The wines of the Southern Rhône are typically blends, with the reds often based on Grenache and balanced by Syrah, Mourvèdre, and an assortment of other varieties. All three northern white varieties are used here, as well as Grenache Blanc, Clairette, Bourbelenc and more. The best known sub-regions of the Southern Rhône are the reliable, wallet-friendly Côtes du Rhône and the esteemed Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Others include Gigondas, Vacqueyras and the rosé-only appellation Tavel.