Winemaker Notes
Blend: Marsanne: 65%, Roussanne: 35%
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
A beauty, with green fig and green almond notes out front, followed by salted butter, chamomile, quinine and white peach flavors that pump through the finish. Shows great cut and intensity, with taut, finely beaded acidity drawing out the finish. Best from 2015 through 2030.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Not surprisingly, the prodigious 2010 Hermitage Chevalier de Sterimberg (about 15,000 bottles produced) is firm and closed, behaving more like a serious red wine than a white. A true grand cru white from the Northern Rhone, it exhibits crisp acidity, lots of tangerine oil, orange marmalade, honeysuckle and acacia flower-like notes intermixed with hints of quince, fig and wet rocks. It would be interesting to place this full-bodied, stunning white in a tasting of Burgundy grand crus.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is just as en pointe as the 2009 we reviewed last year, if in a completely different frame. Where 2009 was airy and open, this is compact and compressed; while 09 was vivacious, 2010 is austere. Where they meet is in the focus of their flavors, less about fruit than an intense, monumental minerality, a firmness that infuses the wines with a sense of import and saline tang that renders them mouthwatering. Tuck this away next to the 09, and pull them both out in 2020 for a vintage comparison.
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.
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.