Fine Wine > France > 92-95 Pts > $20-50

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"The larger-scaled 2010 Crozes-Hermitage Le Rouvre offers a dense purple color followed by aromas of graphite, fruitcake, black currants and blackberries. This stunning, full-bodied, rich Crozes-Hermitage has a lot in common with the more serious wines from Hermitage...

Despite the name,..

Cellar/Tasting Notes
... the 2009 Les Gravieres is the best wine proprietor Denis Barraud has ever produced. Yields were not terribly low at 38 hectoliters per hectare, but this wine (made with 100% Merlot and finishing at just under 14% alcohol) has a spectacular, even flamboyant nose of pen ink, graphite, blackberry..

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"... Pronounced nutty piquancy and wet stone in the nose as well as on the palate here mingle with smoky snuffed candle wick and black tea; quince and white peach...this Clos du Papillon grips so authoritatively and combines such a sense of stuffing and stone without becoming heavy or bitter than..

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"Full-on apple and quince flavors provide the richness to balance the briskness of the soil character. This is sunny and earthy at once, mouthwatering in its freshness, firmly structured for aging."

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"Combines power & elegance. Big and dense, yet fresh and very pretty, marked by gobs of red fruits & a long, elegant finish brimming with hints of violets and wood. This is a 'wow' wine."

Cellar/Tasting Notes
…exquisitely fragrant, ethereal nose of licorice, kirsch, sandy, loamy soil and spice box. The remarkable perfume and expansive texture are amazing… Grenache at its finest.

Cellar/Tasting Notes
This property has made so many fine efforts lately that it is difficult to say the 2009 is better than their 2005. However, the 2009 is a charming, sexy, dense ruby/purple-colored offering displaying lots of ripe Merlot fruit intermixed with hints of charcoal, black raspberries, black currants,..

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"... loads of roasted Provencal herbs, sweet black cherry, black currants and black raspberries, beautiful purity, full-bodied texture and a long finish."

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"… stunning purity and precision… deep, pure and very stony in personality, with a great core of fruit, utterly refined, but serious tannins, bright acids and superb focus and grip on the very long, soil-driven finish."

Cellar/Tasting Notes
"Very graceful, with lovely harmony and detailed texture. Lightly creamy, offering a subtle blend of Fuji apple, hazelnut, lemon pound cake and smoke flavors, with vibrant, mouthwatering acidity. Disgorged February 2011. Drink now through 2018. "