DOMAINE BELLE Hermitage Rouge
Domaine Belle’s Hermitage is 100% Syrah (Shiraz) from organically-farmed vineyards in Les Murets in the commune of Tain l’Hermitage. The average yield is 31 hl/ha from vines grown on permeable limestone, sand and gravel soils. Viticultural practices include close pruning and leaf thinning to improve sun exposure. The grapes are harvested by hand and vinified -- mostly as whole bunches -- in temperature-controlled, stainless-steel vats with daily pumping over and punching down. A final warm maceration follows the five-week, natural, indigenous-yeast fermentation.
The wine is then matured in oak barrels (half new, half one-year-old) for 26 months. It is deep and dark -- almost black -- with glints of dark purple and intense aromas and flavours of fruit -- blackberry, strawberry and pomegranate -- and sweet spices. There are also secondary, complexing balsamic and floral notes. The oak contribution is subtle and the tannins silky and elegant. Despite its weight and complexity, the Domaine Belle Hermitage is also noted for its freshness, balance and overall harmony.
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.
94-96 points, JebDunnuck.com (January 2018)
Plush, big and cuddly, the full-bodied 2015 Hermitage offers mouth-filling flavors of mocha cream and ripe cherries. It's concentrated and rich... give it a couple of years and then drink it over the following decade and a half.
95 points, Wine Advocate (December 2017)
Perfumed notes of sandalwood, smoke and tobacco envelop fig and boysenberry flavors in this wine. It's voluptuous and hedonistic, full of warming spice and smoke tones, but balanced freshly and lingering on soft, chalky tannins. Irresistible already, it should improve through 2030 and hold further.
95 points, Anna Lee C. Iijima (January 2019)
Shiny purple-black robe. Life is a bowl of black cherries here -- the aroma is curvy, with well-entered sweet ripeness. The backdrop hints at menthol, loganberry, notes of herbs. The bouquet will be spherical, profound, engaging. The palate debut is silken, very much on a feline texture. It doesn’t show its inner resources until the finish, where there is a charge of intensity, via red meat, blood, graphite and tar. No footsteps out of place here. It is truly consistent along the palate, the length good. There is lots of bounty on the close. 'It shows very much the blood side of the Syrah – it was like that from the start, and shows the very fine side of Hermitage'.
4.5 stars, John Livingstone-Learmonth, DrinkRhone (April 2016)
Shiny, dark robe. The nose has a ripe and rounded shape, bears supple, deep airs of black berry fruits; one can note the sweet inlay from the ripe crop. There is a hover of pine-oak. The palate is tasty, gourmand, silken, well balanced: this is a Greffieux-Diognières style wine with that caress of elegance included (tasted blind). There is a notable precision, and its harmony indicates a handsome, spherical, velvety glass in the future.
4.5 stars, John Livingstone-Learmonth, DrinkRhone (October 2016)
"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."
95 points, Wine Advocate (December 2017)
"Perfumed notes of sandalwood, smoke and tobacco envelop fig and boysenberry flavors in this wine. It's voluptuous and hedonistic, full of warming spice and smoke tones, but balanced freshly and lingering on soft, chalky tannins. Irresistible already it should improve through 2030 and hold further."
95 points, Anna Lee C. Iijima for Wine Enthusiast (January 2019)
"shiny purple-black robe. Life is a bowl of black cherries here - the aroma is curvy, with well entered sweet ripeness. The backdrop hints at menthol, loganberry, notes of herbs. The bouquet will be spherical, profound, engaging. The palate debut is silken, very much on a feline texture. It doesn’t show its inner resources until the finish, where there is a charge of intensity, via red meat, blood, graphite and tar. No footsteps out of place here. It is truly consistent along the palate, the length good. There is lots of bounty on the close. “It shows very much the blood side of the Syrah – it was like that from the start, and shows the very fine side of Hermitage,”
4.5 stars, drinkrhone (April 2016)
"Shiny, dark robe. The nose has a ripe and rounded shape, bears supple, deep airs of black berry fruits; one can note the sweet inlay from the ripe crop. There is a hover of pine-oak. The palate is tasty, gourmand, silken, well balanced: this is a Greffieux-Diognières style wine with that caress of elegance included (tasted blind). There is a notable precision, and its harmony indicates a handsome, spherical, velvety glass in the future."
4.5 stars, drinkrhone.com (October 2016)
