Delas Hermitage Les Grandes Vignes Ligne de Crete 2019
- Vinous
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Wine
Enthusiast - Decanter
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Wine
Spectator -
Jeb
Dunnuck
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The nose discloses aromas of spice and leather intertwined with deep berry aromas (blackberry, redcurrant) and heady floral notes, liquorice and incense. Its richness, complexity and elegance are by no means a contradiction. The finest granite soils of the Hermitage hillside are to thank for this wine's incredible minerality and finesse. The wine is rich and dense on entry to the palate, where it shows an elegant, broad and flavorsome character. The ripe, smooth and well-integrated tannins contribute to the wine's powerful yet harmonious structure. The palate reveals the same aromas as those found on the nose with nuances of blueberry, raspberry, violet and bitter chocolate. Ligne de Crête is characterized by its exceptional structure, harmony and balance.
This remarkably smooth and elegant wine makes the perfect partner for a pigeon pie, beef tartare ravioli or a roast fillet of deviled duckling with cranberries. It also makes an excellent choice for woodcock, hare "à la Royale" or even a roast rack of lamb in a herb crust.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Powerful, highly perfumed aromas of black/blue fruit liqueur, licorice, olive and potpourri are complemented by an exotic suggestion of incense. Stains the palate with intense boysenberry, cherry, cassis and spicecake flavors that deepen steadily through the midpalate. Shows a suave blend of power and delicacy and betrays no rough edges. Youthfully chewy tannins add shape to an extremely long, mineral-driven finish that delivers outstanding clarity and floral thrust.
Barrel Sample: 96-98 -
Wine Enthusiast
Whiffs of espresso, ore and charred meat mingle into thunderous flavors of crème de cassis and roasted plums in this wine. A single-site expression of Les Grandes Vignes from a ripe yet fresh vintage, it's a showstopping Syrah marked with a creamy texture and ripe tannins. Hermitage is not known for youthful pleasures but this rare bottling embraces the hedonism of adolescence along with its potential to gain power and complexity far beyond 2050.
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Decanter
Plum, damson and blackberry coulis. Dense fruit, very fine tannins and a seamless texture. The alcohol here is quite high, but it's a very impressive wine nonetheless, with great concentration and length, not to mention fine tannins and balanced acidity. An authentic expression of the Hill. There is some cinnamon and cola oak spice running through it and the fruit can take it, it's well balanced. From lieu-dit Les Grandes Vignes, the highest plot on the hill of Hermitage, a new cuvée first made in 2015.
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Wine Spectator
This is very refined, with a long beam of cassis, dark cherry and boysenberry fruit flavors that cut a pure path as sleek iron, violet and red tea nuances fill in around. A subtle mineral edge and a singed alder note peek through at the very end, with the fruit keeping pace along the way. Best from 2023.
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2019 Hermitage Ligne De Crete Lieu-Dit Les Grandes Vignes comes from the top of Hermitage, in a tiny vineyard of thin, granite soils. It offers a deep purple hue as well as brilliant aromatics of crème de cassis, graphite, chocolate, new saddle leather, and spring flowers. More classic smoky meatiness emerges as it sets in the glass, and it's medium to full-bodied and powerful on the palate, with a concentrated, focused mouthfeel, good acidity, and building tannins. There's nothing out of place and it's not over the top, it’s just pure, classic Hermitage greatness. Rating: 95+
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.