Ermitage Le Pavillon, Maison M. Chapoutier 1996

The 1996 offers an amazingly opaque black/purple colour, and a wonderful sweet nose of Asian spices, roasted meats, blackberries, cassis, smoke, hickory, and truffles. The wine possesses sensational texture and length, awesome richness, and a full-bodied, massive personality with no hard edges. It is another great Pavillon that is once more a candidate for perfection. Anticipated maturity: 2012-2035.

A wine that just screams “Granite!” is the sensational 1996 Ermitage le Pavillon, which comes all from the les Bessards lieu-dit on the western side of Hermitage hill. As fine, seamless and layered as they come, this beauty offers classic notes of powdered rocks, cassis, graphite, burning embers and flowers. Full-bodied, concentrated and massive on the palate, you can almost feel the rocky soils this wine comes from on the palate, and it still, even at age 20, has loads of mouth-coasting, sweet tannin emerging on the finish. It’s a tiny step back from the mammoth 1995, yet is still an incredible wine that has another two decades of prime drinking, and will keep even longer.