2020 Hermitage Rouge, Greffieux/Bessards, Bernard Faurie, Rhône (White Capsule)

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.

The most famous of all the northern Rhône appellations, its 120 hectares produce tiny quantities of very long-lived reds. The vines were grown in Roman times, although local folklore claims their origins to be 600 years earlier. The wines are powerful, with a deep colour and firm tannins, and the potential to age for many decades. The best Hermitage is produced from several climats blended together.

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.