Syrah (Hermitage)

When a grape is sometimes referred to be the name of an Appellation d'origine Controllee (AOC), they must do veritable magic there. Well, while it's not common, Syrah is sometimes referred to as Hermitage (the H is silent).

What is Hermitage? To understand its origins, we need to go back to the early 13th century when a knight named Gaspard de Stérimberg, having been wounded in battle, or at least so the legend says, begged of the queen for a place to heal. He was told that he could do so on a smallish hill in the northern Rhone region not too far south of Lyon. Staying there, according to legend, mostly by himself, for most of the rest of his days, the same legend says that he was known as L'Ermite (or the hermit). So, his home, the chapel built on the hill to honor his legend, and the hill itself became known as L'Ermitage or Hermitage.

The hill itself is largely granite and quite steeply sloped. Grapes are planted on the southwesterly facing slopes so that they are exposed to the intense afternoon sunlight.

The hill itself is divided into seven vineyards, one to the west, two on the top, and four to the east. Each of those vineyards has a name and I could Google them, but then again you could as well. Parodying what math books used to say, the search is left to the reader.

The wines of Hermitage need not be 100% Syrah, but usually are. Two white grapes, Marsanne and Roussanne are planted in Hermitage as well and are often blended in small quantities with the Syrah. And, the so-called "white Hermitage" wines are also excellent ... and priced as if they are excellent.

Perhaps the best way to understand the appeal of Hermitage Syrah is to walk you through a vicarious tasting of a legendary vertical (doing our best to keep the Domaine anonymous). We're tasting through 20 years today and that means that we must sample 20 different wines. We are tasting at cellar temperature without decanting.

What we find is that at cellar temperature, even the young wines are quite approachable. However, as the wines warm just a bit having met the air, the tannins become more pronounced and the particularly young wines tighten.

The youngest vintages were quite reflective of their vintages -- of the climate in their growing seasons. So, for example, the warmer vintages during which fruit was often given more hang time produced bigger, riper wines while the cooler vintages gave us an earthier aroma.

As we got to the older vintages, however, each of the wines tasted quite similar. Each had the distinctive characteristics of the great wines of this Domaine. The best of these wines show quite well 30 years after harvest still exhbiting some of the classic notes of the great wines of Hermitage including black tea, blood orange, dates, black cherry, raspberry, and a bit of mesquite.

So, why are these wines so expensive?

The land is treasured. Growing grapes here is quite a challenge on the steeply sloped granite. And, growing season is often met by the likes of heavy rains and even hail Despite the somewhat loose bunches of Syrah when compared to the noble grapes of Bordeaux, it is exceptionally difficult to make it to a successful harvest when encountering that sort of weather. If you lose half your grapes, your price of production has to go up.

So, why does this tasting have to be vicarious? While some of the bottles that we tasted from today were priced "reasonably" at about $250, many of the older bottles sell for more than $1,000 if you can find them.

Enjoy these wines alone or with traditional Syrah dishes. Roast lamb with peppery au jus and a blood orange marmalade feels like a perfect dish to eat vicariously.