
2020
Region
France › Rhône › Northern Rhône › Crozes-Hermitage › Crozes-Hermitage AOC
Type
white · still
Grapes
Marsanne, Roussanne
Volume
750 mL
This one is odd. Tropical and properly funky on the nose - raw, eggy, with overripe tropical fruit pushing through, the kind of register that announces itself loudly. The acidity sits on the lower side, but the reductive layer fills in the space and creates a sense of concentration that's mostly trick-of-the-light. Palate keeps going there - cooked nettles, that vegetal-eggy thread running through. The masking-as-substance approach disarms me rather than persuading me. Interesting, but not a register I want to spend time in. The outcast of the lineup.
Marsanne-Roussanne blend - the proportions vary vintage to vintage, with Roussanne sometimes leading and sometimes the junior partner. Direct press, native ferment, ageing in old demi-muids or used barrels (no new oak), bottled without filtration or added sulphur. Crozes-Hermitage Blanc tends to show more orchard fruit and honey weight than the Saint-Joseph Blanc - a richer, broader expression of the same Marsanne-Roussanne idiom in the same low-intervention frame.