2020 Domaine Les Hauts de Mercurol Crozes-Hermitage Rhone 750 ml

Crozes-Hermitage is the source of some of the finest values in the entire Rhône. The best wines from the appellation meld the granite-driven power of Hermitage’s hill with a drink-now appeal—without the triple-digit prices that Crozes’ famous neighbor commands.

Domaine Les Hauts de Mercurol’s 2020 is a prime example of the stunning complexity that Syrah can develop in the Rhône hillsides that the grape calls home. Named for an 11th century castle, whose ruins neighbor the small seven-hectare vineyard, Yves Cheron and his daughter Elisa tap a corner of Crozes Hermitage made famous by star winemakers Dard & Ribo for this bold bottle.

Their vineyard lies on a mixture of coveted granite and fluvio-glacial alluvium, all set to a landscape of rolling hills, with the famous village of Tain-L’Hermitage a short drive away. Combined with the Cheron’s old vines—dating back half a century—and you have a recipe for the kind of wine that made the northern Rhône world-famous for Syrah.

Elisa Cheron is the winemaker for Domaine Les Hauts de Mercurol, and she handles the hand-harvested grapes with a deft touch—destemming them to remove harsh stem tannins, while fermenting the berries in open-top, temperature-controlled tanks to carefully manage extraction. 2020 was a warm vintage, with thick skins that produced bold flavors, and it took a skilled hand to balance fruit, tannin, and acidity.

Syrah doesn’t always take kindly to oak flavors, especially the savory, sage-accented flavor of the grape from their plot of land, so after 10–12 days of maceration, the wine is aged in a split of concrete tanks and barrels that have already been used two to three times. The result is a bottle that’s not shy on character—or on deliciousness—right now.