2008 Hermitage, Bessard/ Méal, Domaine Bernard Faurie

2008 Hermitage, Bessard/ Méal, Domaine Bernard Faurie

Product: 947075
Place a bid
 
2008 Hermitage, Bessard/ Méal, Domaine Bernard Faurie

Buying options

You can place a bid for this wine on BBX
Place a bid
Sorry, Out of stock

Description

Bernard’s best wine, which is dramatically oversubscribed, is one of the great names of Hermitage. The equilibrium achieved between the two communes is inspiring, the alluvial Méal lending a terrific density of fruit and tannic power to the supple Bessard character. To describe it as ‘an iron fist in a velvet glove’ is permissible if the description is made by Bernard Faurie, first because it sounds better in French and secondly because it is very accurate! Drink 2014-2020.

wine at a glance

Delivery and quality guarantee

About this WINE

Bernard Faurie

Bernard Faurie

The magus of Tournon, M Faurie is a quiet, softly-spoken individual. His garage-cum-cellar is a chaotic model of disorder and confusion and he often seems unsure as to which wines are located in which barrels. And yes, you have guessed it, all is rendered miraculously irrelevant by the alchemical processes that have actually produced the wines. Eschewing destemming, and favouring lengthy elevage, M Faurie, is certainly old school. The type of school, evidently, that everyone will fight to get into. Given the paucity of allocation, the fight may be a keen one in the great vintage of 2009.

Find out more
Syrah/Shiraz

Syrah/Shiraz

A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.

It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.

South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.

Find out more