TN: 2004 Bernard Faurie Hermitage Bessards-Le Méal

I shouldn’t be opening Hermitage this young, but after hearing Martin Steinley and Robert Alfert’s enthusiasm for this, I couldn’t resist this.

This is absolutely fantastic, living up to their praise and to the high expectations I had. It is everything I want/expect traditional Hermitage to be, layers of dark fruit, olives, savoury earth, smoke and fainter meaty and peppery notes all coming together seamlessly. It’s surprisingly accessible upon first pour, but with time in the decanter it only gets more complex and savoury. There’s a sense of rusticity to the flavours, but incredible grace and finesse on the palate with a texture that’s very polished despite the fine grained tannin on the back end. Fantastic. Now I’m convinced I need a lot more Faurie in the cellar.

(Note to Martin, it’s a lot easier on my wallet if you just sell swill. neener )

Nice note, Salil!

Would love to find some more mature Faurie to see the heights these wines can hit. They are agers. I just posted earlier on an 07 I popped yesterday, which needs years.

Nice note, Salil. What you say here sums the wine up for me. You apparently haven’t been paying attention because everything that I sell under $50-$75 is swill. It’s a long list.

I don’t see your note, Robert.

I thought it was only Burgundy where you couldn’t find good wine under $75!

Are you telling me that even those inexpensive Chinons and St. Josephs are swill as well?

Dammit!

Robert, I’ve had a few slightly older bottles that were superb - an '01 St. Joseph VV and a '97 Hermitage a few years ago were both fantastic. There’s a bottle of his 07 SJ VV buried offsite in my cellar that I don’t plan to touch for a decade at least.

Salib

We drank a 98 St Joe last week-actually needed decanting and some time to really open up. Got better with more time. They age well. I haven’t touched my 96-98 Hermitage’s yet.