2015 Hermitage

Bright purple. A highly perfumed nose displays an array of ripe black and blue fruit, Indian spice and floral aromas enlivened by a smoky mineral quality. Sappy and deeply concentrated, offering sweet cassis and blueberry flavors and a suggestion of candied violet. The mineral and floral components drive an extremely long, incisive finish that's given shape by smooth, slow-building tannins.

The 2015 Hermitage is another beautiful wine that sports a deep, opaque purple color as well as an undeniable backward feel in its cassis, liquid rock, fresh violet and smoked earth bouquet. It lacks the sheer decadence and expansive character of the Côte Rôtie, but has phenomenal purity, beautiful concentration, ripe tannin and a blockbuster finish. It gains depth and richness with time in the glass, and is going to need 4-5 years of cellaring to be drinkable, but will have three decades of overall longevity.

100% Sérine, Syrah (60 years old). Rouméas, Pierelles and les Diognères. New and one-year-old barrels. Blackish crimson out to the rim. Heady and particularly dense on the nose. Very bright fruit – massive intensity and energy. Well-managed tannins. Very serious stuff. Interesting that it is the Côte Rôtie and not this wine that has sold out chez Corney & Barrow. Massive tannic charge and at present a very dry finish. Some already perceptible richness underneath though – not just structure. A crème brûlée note, in fact. (JR)