2017 Hermitage Bessards Meal

I was able to taste two 2017s from barrel. The 2017 Hermitage Gréffieux / Bessards is a beauty and shows the more sweetly fruited, sexy style of the vintage with its sweet currants, cassis, ground herbs, and new leather aromas. It shows more pepper and violet notes with time in the glass and is a seriously complex, layered, sexy beast that’s going to be relatively approachable in its youth yet also age gracefully. You’ll be hard pressed to find more pure, classic, old school Hermitage than those from Bernard Faurie, who has a tiny cellar just outside of Tournon. A fifth-generation winemaker, Faurie owns vines in three different lieux-dits on Hermitage: Bessards, Gréffieux, and Méal, from which he makes several different cuvées. The wines are not destemmed and are brought up mostly in used barrels. These are singular wines and marry a rare sense of power and elegance that’s not readily found elsewhere. Unfortunately, the wines are made in minuscule quantities and are difficult to find, but life is too short not to try the wines of this Hermitage genius!

(red capsule) Lurid ruby. Vibrant, mineral-accented red and dark berry and floral pastille aromas show outstanding clarity and pick up a peppery spice nuance with air. Juicy and incisive on the palate, offering intense cherry, boysenberry and spicecake flavors that are given spine and tension by a core of juicy acidity. Finishes floral and extremely long, displaying resonating minerality and steadily mounting tannins.