This for me is one of the red wines of the year. It’s so savoury, so firm, so deeply fruited and so compelling at every turn. It’s heady with fragrant dry-and-green herbs, comes laced with pretty floral notes, pours rich cherry, plum and graphite flavours straight at you and coats everything in the lightest, most deft application of smoky, chocolate-like oak.

Rich in fruit, texture and savoury detail. Dark chocolate and black cherry, plum and sweet spice, smoky oak and graphite. Twiggy spice and associated herb characters are here but they keep their head down for the most part. Is there some reduction here? Probably a little, thankfully. The length here is seriously good, as is the package as a whole.

The colour is medium-deep with a tint of purple and there are sousbois/forest-floor aromas, showing some whole-bunch influence, with assorted spices including black pepper. It’s full bodied and rich, generous, ample and ripe with charming texture and a long and resonant finish. A compelling mix of cool-grown spices with superripe abundance of flavour and body.

It's quite the journey to watch the wine unfurl its many layers. Those that adore Hermitage and its ability to transform over time, this is right up your alley. Tannins are densely packed like biting through a baklava’s filo pastry sheets and acidity really carries the flavours on and on this vintage. I’m truly impressed with the balance for a vintage that for watchful winemakers was anything but

Medium deep crimson. Intense mulberry, blackberry pastille mocha aromas with hint of bush garrigue. Medium bodied wine with blackberry pastille, cassis flavours, fine leafy texture, a touch of black pepper and underlying savoury/ chinotto notes. Lovely weight, viscosity and purity.