Maison Nicolas Perrin Hermitage Rouge 2012
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Wine Spectator
This red offers a broad, fleshy feel, delivering flavors of dark plum, cherry and blackberry embedded with notes of fruitcake, black licorice and sweet spices. The toasty frame is well-integrated, and the sanguine-tinged finish offsets the fruit.
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Wine & Spirits
From the venture forged by Nicolas Jaboulet and the Perrin family of Château de Beaucastel in 2009, this is sophisticated Crozes, subtle and polished. Entirely marsanne, its standout feature is its texture, as smooth as corn silk; the flavors are more savory than fruit-driven, broad and lightly spicy. It will come in handy with dishes that are delicate and complexly spiced, like a seafood couscous.
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Robert
Parker
The story of Maison Nicolas Perrin is that of two families who come from the two opposite ends of the Rhone valley, North and South.
In the North, Nicolas Jaboulet, who grew up on the hillsides of Hermitage, and the Perrin fmaily who has been in the southern Rhone, primarily in the prestigious appellation of Chateauneuf du pape, since the beginning of the 20th century.
This geographical reunion finds its meaning in the phrase "Axis Mundi." These latin words stand for the 4 cardinal points and symbolize the Cotes de Rhone region divided between the Northern (Septentrional) and the Southern (Meridional) appellations and right and left banks of the Rhone river.
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.