Wine Advisor
Delas, Hermitage Les Bessards 2013
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Josh Raynolds
(aged in 70% new oak for 18 months): Inky ruby. Sexy, highly perfumed aromas of ripe dark berries, cherry liqueur, peppery spices and fresh flowers, backed by a hint of olive. Supple and appealingly sweet, offering intense, deeply concentrated blackberry and violet pastille flavors and a suggestion of star anise. Finishes pure, sweet and energetic on the penetrating finish, showing outstanding focus and slow-building tannins.
Reviewed by: Josh Raynolds
Inky purple. Seductively perfumed aromas of dark berry liqueur, fruitcake, incense and candied flowers, with a smoky mineral note emerging with air. Offers deeply pitched blueberry, bitter cherry and licorice pastille flavors, along with an oak spice nuance that sneaks in slowly. Weighty, spicy and surprisingly lively on the finish, displaying excellent clarity and smooth, harmonious tannins.
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
The two Hermitages both showed brilliantly. Certainly one of the top wines in the vintage, the 2013 Hermitage Les Bessards sports an inky black color to go with serious notes of liquid rock (I commented in my notes that drinking this was similar to licking a rock), cracked pepper, scorched earth, cassis and blackberry-like fruit. Concentrated, firm and structured, with medium to full-bodied depth and weight, it will need 3-5 years to round into form, and have two decades of longevity.
Reviewed by: Jeb Dunnuck
Closed, tight and backwards, the 2013 Hermitage les Bessards is a big, full-bodied, burly wine that offers first rate purity in its black raspberry, ozone, liquid rock, and creosote-like bouquet. It has plenty of material and density, but will need 7-8 years of bottle age to become approachable. As normal, it comes all from the “Bas de Coteau” portion of the Bessards lieu-dit, was completely destemmed and saw 18 months in 30% new French oak.
About the Producer
The famous Drass Frère wine company was founded in 1835. Since 1996, the spirit and soul that contributed to the reputation of quality wines has been restored. At present, the Dras brothers have a total of 30 hectares of vineyards, 10 of which are in the Emmettage-Hermitage appellation, 2 in Saint-Joseph and the remaining 18 in Croze-Hermitage. The steep granite hillsides provide favourable growing conditions for the vineyards of the Hermitage appellation, which produces the best quality wines. The grapes are hand-harvested and the fruit is intact and not prone to premature crushing, and in 1996 the estate was renovated by replacing all the old stainless steel fermentation vats with 85 litre concrete vats, and the 2,500 litre old oak barrels were replaced by 600 Burgundy oak barrels. The renovation of the equipment has allowed the winery to separate the fermentation of different batches of grapes, set the fermentation temperature according to the needs of the different varieties, and to monitor them in a targeted manner. The winery uses the gravity artesian method in the vinification process, where the fruit is crushed and poured by gravity into the fermentation vats. After fermentation and pressing, the wine is decanted into oak barrels where malolactic fermentation takes place. The main grape variety is Syrah, but the estate also produces some white wines, mainly made from Marsanne and Viognier. The wines of the Delas Brothers include Domaine des Tourettes, Les Bessards, Seigneur de Maugiron and Francois de Tournon. Francois de Tournon, among others.
