| Score: |
93 VM.
"Bright violet. Heady, smoke- and spice-tinged blueberry, cherry liqueur and violet aromas show excellent clarity and pick up olive and smoky bacon notes with aeration. Sweet and energetic on the palate, offering deeply concentrated black and blue fruit and floral pastille flavors plus a suggestion of fine-spice powder. The impressively long, sappy finish features bright mineral cut, an echo of juicy blue fruit and velvety tannins that sneak up slowly. This somewhat under-the-radar winery has long been a source for topnotch wines that are true to their appellations. Under the direction of Lionel Faury, who has been in charge of his family’s 11-hectare domain since taking over from his father Philippe in 2006, the quality here has accelerated rapidly and the wines now often place among the very best that I taste in the course of my annual northern Rhône cellar visits. That was definitely the case with Faury’s 2015, wines from a vintage that Lionel describes as “one in which you had to watch ripeness, but the nights were cold so sugars moved up slowly, unlike in a truly solar year like 2003 or even 2009, when they really took off.” The stems were especially healthy in 2015, he added, meaning that he used between 50% and 60% whole clusters on average rather than the 25% to 33% that’s his normal practice. All of the plantings here are massalle selections, which means that virtually all of Faury’s red plantings are Vieille Serine, the original non-clone version of today’s Syrah. As good as Faury’s Côte-Rôties are, I have a special fondness for the estate’s Saint-Joseph Vieilles Vignes (called La Gloriette except in the United States), which is made from 60+-year-old Serine vines on granite soil high above Faury’s home village of Chavanay. The 2015 rendition of this wine is a killer and a must-buy for fans of the region, especially at its price." Josh Raynolds, Vinous.com, Feb 2018 |