Delas Hermitage Domaine des Tourettes 2019
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Spirits
Wine & -
Spectator
Wine -
Dunnuck
Jeb -
Parker
Robert - Decanter
Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The wine has a brilliant, deep red hue. The nose is powerful and complex, expressing blackberries, spices and leather. On the palate the wine is firm but silky, with a tightly-knit tannic structure that is the hallmark of wines that have a good future.
Pair this wine with rare or medium-cooked games, marinated meats and spicy stews. We recommend opening this bottle between one and three hours before drinking
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
A blend of fruit from the lieux-dits Les Bessards, Le Sabot and L’Ermite, this 2019 draws together a picture of the Hermitage hill in all its grandeur and complexity. At its center, it’s bright and juicy, filled with ripe berry flavors; around the edges, it’s stony and firm, with herbal notes that accent its cool reserve. It shows some vanilla and spice tones from its time in oak (a mix of new and barrels) but the fruit handles it well, absorbing it into a warm, rich density of flavor. This should age well for 20 years or more.
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Wine Spectator
Ripe, fresh, bright and pure, with a racy-edged mix of plum sauce, cherry preserves and blackberry paste flavors underscored with mouthwatering anise, apple wood and sweet tobacco notes. The long finish flows nicely, and this flirts with approachable already, but there's no rush. Drink now.
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Jeb Dunnuck
There are two Hermitage releases from this talented team. Looking at the 2019 Hermitage Domaine Des Tourettes, it offers a darker, more black-fruited, smoky profile revealing ample scorched earth, graphite, leather, and classic Hermitage meatiness. This carries to a medium to full-bodied beauty with a plush, layered mouthfeel, plenty of tannins, terrific overall balance, and a great finish. Given its wealth of fruit and sweet tannins, it's already drinkable, yet smart money will give these just 4-5 years in the cellar and enjoy bottles over the following two decades. As always, this cuvée comes from three separate parcels: l'Ermite, Les Bessards, and Le Sabot, and it was destemmed and brought up in a mix of new and used French oak.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Similar in construction to the 2018, the 2019 Hermitage Domaine des Tourettes features scents of crushed stone, redcurrants, cherries and vanilla up front, then backs those with a creamy, lush, medium to full-bodied palate that lacks the muscle often associated with this appellation. That said, it shows bolder notes of licorice, blackberry and mocha on the long, velvety finish. Tasted twice (once blind), with consistent notes. Best After 2023
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Decanter
Lovely tightly focused blackberry and damson fruit up front. Very ripe, intense and imposing. Tannins close in on the finale; a long finish.
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Suckling
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Wine
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.