2017 Crozes Hermitage Cuvee Gaby
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Tasting notes
Saturated ruby. Intense cherry and blackberry scents, along with hints of pipe tobacco, cola and baking spices. Juicy and energetic in the mouth, offering concentrated cherry, blueberry and spicecake flavors that turn sweeter on the back half. Sneaky, rounded tannins build steadily on an impressively long, spice-accented finish that leaves behind suggestions of mocha and candied flowers.
Critic scores
Average Score
Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jancis Robinson MW
More reviews and scores
While the 2017 Crozes Hermitage Cuvee Gaby shows a bit more intensity and structure (along with a touch more mocha-scented oak), it's essentially similar to the regular Crozes, with a nice balance of fruity and savory characters: black cherries and plums balanced by asphalt and black olives. Full-bodied and velvety, it should be able to age up to a decade from the vintage.
A more limited production, the 2017 Crozes-Hermitage Gaby comes from older vines and is brought up in 1- through 5-year-old barrels. It offers more pure cassis fruit as well as terrific notes of charred meats, white flowers, smoked earth, and graphite. Pure, polished, full-bodied, and concentrated, it has a kiss of background oak, loads of character, and is going to benefit from 2-4 years of bottle age. As I predicted last year, it's up with the top wines in the vintage. These wines are made by the talented Florent Viale and shine for their purity as well as character. While the winemaking here is traditional, with the wines destemmed and brought up mostly in used demi-muids, the purity of fruit can give the impression that wines are more modern styled than they are. They will all benefit from short-term cellaring.
Cask sample. Tasted blind. Simple black fruit, abrasive tannin, tarry notes to finish. Too much structure not enough flavour. (RH)