Domaine Aleofane Crozes-Hermitage 2020
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Jeb
Dunnuck - Decanter
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Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Deep purple in color. The nose offers a full and intense fruit expression accompanied by floral, spicy and roasted notes: violet, cherry and plum, berry, and mocha.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
Already bottled, the 2020 Crozes-Hermitage shows the vintage beautifully, with a pure, medium-bodied, elegant style as well as the classic floral, pretty, exotic character this cuvée always shows. I love its overall balance, it has nicely integrated acidity as well as impressive purity in its cassis and dark berry fruits, and it’s going to drink nicely right out of the gate yet also evolve for over a decade. This is an estate readers need to seek out.
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Decanter
Lovely lavender and dried herbs on the nose and palate. Shot through with saturated fine tannin and juicy blackberry acidity. Plenty of detail, personality, power, freshness and great balance, this is a really satisfying glass of Crozes-Hermitage.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Crozes Hermitage immediately conjures visions of a wild blackberry thicket—slightly green, prickly, yet brimming with sweet fruit. That said, it's much more polished in the mouth, where this medium to full-bodied wine delivers ripe fruit, smooth, supple tannins and a lingering, softly tannic finish. Nicely done.
Other Vintages
2018- Decanter
Natacha Chave knew she would make wine like her parents. At the beginning of the year 2000, her brother Yann Chave took over their father’s domaine (Bernard Chave), a renowned vineyard created in 1970 on the Crozes-Hermitage and Hermitage appellations. Natacha was ready to get into the family business. She enrolled at the Suze la Rousse wine university in 2003, then passed a Farming Professional Capacity (CPA), and then did her work experience with various winegrowers to complete her training. In 2004, she bought 1.5ha of vines in the Saint Joseph appellation at Tournon-sur-Rhône. In 2007, she bought 40 years old vines on a Crozes-Hermitage appellation in the Chassis plain (Beaumont-Monteux village) and planted a few vines reaching 5ha extending her domaine to 6.5ha.
The name of the domaine is Aléofane, in reference with the imaginary island from a book by author, John Macmillan Brown. According to Natacha Chave, “Our immediate will is the respect of nature, soils, grapes and is to be as little as interventionist as possible both in grape growing and in winemaking process.” Grass covering between rows, total work of the soil according to the years to induce or not competition with the vine. And she goes on with vinification: indigenous yeasts and no enzyme. No filtration, no fining and few sulphites as possible. Natacha also uses biodynamic preparations that favor the stimulation of the plant natural immunity and its balance. — Natacha’s approach is very time consuming, but the payoff is well worth it.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Crozes-Hermitage is Northern Rhone’s largest appellation, surrounding the steep granite faces of Hermitage to its north and south. Here the rolling vineyards are less extreme and its soils, rich in clay-limestone and alluvial matter, produce Syrahs that range from fruity and charming to lush and seductive. The Syrahs of Crozes-Hermitage have more mass than those from St. Joseph but are less intense than those from Hermitage. While many are intended for early consumption, some of the best Syrahs from Crozes-Hermitage will age beautifully for 5-10 years.
Up to 15% of white grapes may theoretically be added to red Crozes at the time of fermentation but whether this is done or not depends on the decision of the winemaker. The best Crozes-Hermitage Syrahs will be fleshy with black fruit (currant, blackberry and black cherry) and bay leaf qualities, notes of tar and stone, and a well-concentrated finish of smooth tannins.
About a tenth of the wine produced in Crozes-Hermitage is white, primarily composed of Marsanne supplemented by smaller amounts of Roussanne.