Delas : Les Bessards 2017

Archetypal Les Bessards, the Delas 2017 Hermitage Les Bessards boasts rich, deep cassis fruit accented by hints of crushed stone and pencil shavings. It's full-bodied, ripe yet firm, with great energy, freshness and length on the spice-tinged finish. While relatively approachable young, it should age well for up to two decades. Tasted twice (once blind), with one bottle showing more peppery spice, red berries and cured-meat notes.

A sleek, mineral-edged version, with black cherry and black currant puree flavors streaming through, laced with singed mesquite notes, a flash of iron and a lingering sanguine echo. Restrained in style but not lacking energy, delivering a nice piercing feel at the very end. Best from 2020 through 2032. 345 cases made.

Fermented in concrete and aged for 14 months in new or one-year-old barriques, this wine is airy and lifted, with precisely delineated, resinous blackberry and blackcurrant fruit. It’s not overly full-bodied, with a bright, vivid, precise, focused palate showing real drive and thrust. Long, saline and very well balanced. Kapow!

This is set in darker fruit tones with a rich and ripe plum and blackberry core, as well as graphite and sarsaparilla. Some hung meat and suave oak spices. The palate has very vertical, mouth-filling presence and a very bright, clear and vibrant style that delivers a long, sweetly spiced blackberry and black-cherry core. Try from 2025.

Brilliant purple. Deeply perfumed aromas of ripe blackberry, cherry liqueur and violet take on olive, fruitcake and incense nuances with air. Juicy and deeply concentrated, offering concentrated black and blue fruit, olive paste, floral pastille and spice flavors that become more energetic as the wine opens up. Marries richness and energy with a sure hand and shows superb definition on a strikingly long finish that features youthfully chewy tannins and building floral and spice notes.

Rich, dark, deep, and smoky, the olive-infused blackberries and black cherries offer purity, as well as length and persistence. Full-bodied, concentrated, and fresh, the wine leaves you with vibrant, creamy fruit. Drink from 2024–2042.

A more fruit-driven than saline version of Les Bessards at this stage—at least on the nose—but the palate finds the right tempo again, with firm, upright tannins, perfectly wrapped; the fresh finish brings balance and supports the length. It’s best to forget it for now.

Deep, undulating layers of cassis and mulberry are shaded by hints of cinnamon, charred meat and coffee bean in this hulking Syrah. It's a rich, plushly textured sip but gripped by a firm, penetrating frame of tannins. Stunning but a bit unwieldy in youth, it would be best cellared till 2022, but the wine will reward patience.