2015 Hermitage

Inky ruby. Deep-pitched dark fruit preserve, violet and olive scents, along with suggestions of smoky bacon and game. Sweet and broad on the palate, offering plush cassis, blueberry and spicecake flavors that turn spicier as the wine opens up. In a ripe, generous style, showing solid dark fruit thrust on a long, smooth finish framed by velvety tannins.

Belle's inky colored 2015 Hermitage looks to be a stunner. This cuvée comes all from the more sandy, limestone soils of the Les Murets lieu-dit and will see 26 months in barrel. It has a gorgeous bouquet of cassis, Asian spices, vanilla bean and liquid rock. This gives way to a full-bodied, ripe, powerful Hermitage that has terrific purity, an elegant, balanced personality and building, ripe tannin. It needs 3-4 years of cellaring and will drink beautifully for two decades. I always love the wines from this tiny estate and they’ve made a number of brilliant wines in 2015.

Plush, big and cuddly, the full-bodied 2015 Hermitage offers mouth-filling flavors of mocha cream and ripe cherries. It's concentrated and rich but maybe doesn't have quite the detail and precision of the estate's top wines from the granites of Saint Joseph or Crozes Hermitage. It's a bit drying on the finish at the moment, so give it a couple of years and then drink it over the following decade and a half.