2020 Ermitage Les Greffieux

More game, bacon fat, truffly earth, and both red and black fruits emerge from the 2020 Ermitage Les Greffieux, another deep, rich, incredibly concentrated wine from this estate. Coming from the more sedimentary soils at the base of Hermitage, destemmed and aged in 20% new oak, this full-bodied, monster of a wine has sweet, velvety tannins, a huge mid-palate, and a gorgeous finish. This is up there with the finest vintages of this cuvée I've tasted. Give bottles 5-7 years, count yourself lucky, and enjoy over the following 20-25 years.

Opaque magenta. Displays an array of fresh red and dark fruit, floral and spice qualities on the intensely perfumed nose, along with building mineral and succulent herb notes. Vibrant and silky in texture, offering profoundly concentrated blackberry, boysenberry, cherry and violet pastille flavors enlivened by intense mineral and cracked pepper nuances. Shows superb delineation and emphatic mineral thrust on the youthfully tannic finish, which strongly repeats the floral and red fruit notes. If you are fortunate enough to have any of the 2008 versions of this bottling, then know that it is simply gorgeous right now, with loads of savory character, especially tobacco and smoked meat qualities.

Attractive fruity perfume straight away, ripe blackberries. There's an inner sweetness to the fruit, the alcohol is raised, adding a little more sweetness. Generous roundness, a very accessible and juicy style of Hermitage. Great tannic ripeness and generous in load, but feels a little bit too ripe and easy to promise great future complexity. Pleasure though? Undoubtedly.