Winemaker Notes
Steady, garnet red in color, the nose expresses hints of small black fruits, ink and black pepper. The palate displays strident tannins and black licorice notes.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Ripe red and black fruits, roasted herbs, roasted meats, graphite, and chocolate notes emerge from the 2022 Ermitage Les Greffieux. Full-bodied and concentrated on the palate, it has a rich, textured mouthfeel, plenty of ripe tannins, and beautiful overall balance. Coming from deeper soils on the lower slopes of Hermitage, the 2022 was 90% destemmed and spent 18 months in a mix of puncheons and demi-muids, with 15% being new.
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Wine Spectator
This brooding red opens up with time in glass, revealing an inviting, smoky, meaty core of ripe plum and black currant layered with smoldering graphite and singed alder. Powered by savory energy and concentration, this shows impressive purity, with a pleasing chewiness to the substantial finish, held in check by iron-edged tannins and wafting with pretty dried lavender and herbs.
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Vinous
The magnificent 2022 Ermitage Les Greffieux commences with enticing aromas of graphite, black cherry, cedar, red plum and earthy subtleties. Clear-cut and savory, the 2022 delivers concentrated fruit notes with great energy and focus. More full- than medium-bodied, it’s remarkably balanced and should be drinking beautifully by 2027.
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.