2016 Hermitage Monier de la Sizeranne

Bright violet. Highly perfumed black and blue fruit preserve, incense and baking spice aromas, along with hints of smoky minerals and olive paste. Silky, seamless and penetrating in the mouth, offering concentrated blackberry, boysenberry, violet pastille and spicecake flavors that become more energetic on the back half. Rich yet lively, finishing gently sweet and long, with harmonious tannins and repeating mineral and floral notes.

The 2016 Hermitage Monier de La Sizeranne checks in as 100% Syrah that's from a multitude of terroirs on Hermitage, and it spent 16 months in 25% new French oak. It's the finest vintage of this cuvée I can remember and offers sensational notes of currants, blackberries, smoked earth, new saddle leather, and graphite. Just a classic Hermitage, with sweet tannins, a rounded, sumptuous texture, and a serious core of fruit, don't miss this beauty! It’s going to benefit from 4-5 years of bottle age and have 2-3 decades of prime drinking. The estate of firebrand Michel Chapoutier continues to operate on all cylinders, and these latest 2016 and 2017 releases are world class for this address. The 2017 whites show the gradual change toward a more reductive style of winemaking, and the wines at times have an almost Burgundian feel in their minerality, acidity, and texture. Nevertheless, they’re fabulously concentrated and rich and will need 2-4 years of cellaring. The 2016 whites showed beautifully, and I prefer those to the 2017s. The majority of the 2017 reds were tasted as barrel samples. This is a ripe, sexy, expressive vintage for the Northern Rhône, and this shows in the wines. The 2017s don’t appear to have the density of the more blockbuster styled 2015s, yet they have expressive, sunny characters that will deliver loads of charm. The 2016s having slightly more density and cooler-climate styled aromatics, yet are nevertheless some of the richest, sexiest wines in the vintage. In addition to the frightfully expensive top-tier cuvées, don’t miss the value releases from this estate. These wines max out the QPR scale and are great introductions into the wines of Chapoutier as well as the Rhône Valley.

Full-bodied and rich while at the same time silky smooth, the 2016 Hermitage Monier de la Sizeranne is a fine effort that needs only a couple of years in the cellar. Pencil shavings and crushed stones frame cassis and black olive flavors, turning to charcoal notes on the long, softly dusty finish.