Hermitage Rouge, J-L Chave 2016

Moving to the Hermitage releases, this always comes primarily from the Les Bessards lieu-dit yet includes smaller amounts from a number of top vineyards on this magical hillside. The 2016 Hermitage is beautiful and shows the classic style of the vintage beautifully. Notes of crème de cassis, hints of blue fruits, violets, and wet stone all emerge from the glass, and it plays in the full-bodied end of the spectrum, with a pure, polished, seamless texture on the palate. It has plenty of tannins, yet they’re perfectly ripe, it has no hard edges, and a great finish. While aromatically it seems to come from a cooler year, it has the sweet fruit and opulence on the palate of a warmer year. It’s a beautiful wine. Give bottles 5-6 years and enjoy over the following 30 years or more. 2020 - 2050

Chave's 2016 Hermitage isn't the most intense or biggest wine this estate has produced, but it's a wonderfully charming, approachable effort from a vintage where quantities were halved by hail damage. Perfumed and spicy, with notes of black olives and black cherries, it's full-bodied, cuddly-soft and velvety in texture, with a long, harmonious finish. I expect it will firm up a little over the next year or two in bottle, but it's delicious now and should mature gracefully for at least 15 years, probably longer. 2020 - 2035

I was able to taste the 2016 Hermitage from three separate tanks which are blended prior to bottling. All three samples showed brilliant purity of fruit, full body, a forward, seamless, elegant texture, and classic building minerality. This is haute couture at its finest and is pure class that could come from nowhere else. As with most 2016s, it's going to be relatively accessible in its youth, yet this is one Hermitage that's not going to hit maturity for another 8-10 years and will keep for three decades.

Still mostly in separate components, the 2016 Hermitage nevertheless looks sensational. Les Beaumes was very pretty and red fruited, with silky tannins (94 - 96). Le Méal was putting itself forward as plush and velvety, with flowers, crushed stone and ripe fruit (95 - 97). A combined sample of les Bessards and l'Hermite showed great, granite-derived structure allied to licorice and cassis (96 - 98).