Etienne Becheras Crozes-Hermitage 'Le Prieure d'Arras' Rouge, Rhone, France 2021

VINTAGE : 2021

COUNTRY : France

REGION/APPELLATION : Northern Rhône Valley, Crozes-Hermitage

VARIETALS : Syrah

With vineyards principally situated in the Saint-Joseph appellation, supplemented with limited but well-placed holdings in Crozes-Hermitage, Becheras’s wines are an excellent example of wines from this mid-section of the Northern Rhône and offer compelling value.

This is, as Hemingway said about the best of writing, a “true” wine. There can be no wine more expressive of this appellation and of the Syrah of the northern Rhone than this splendid bottle of joy. A wine of sublime concentration that gives definition to the term “goût de sèvre”, this is satisfying, pure and flat-out delicious. It bristles with fresh acidity at the outset, then with aeration settles in to display classic northern Rhone meaty fruit. Becheras is a truly worthy successor to the great Michel Ferraton—a domaine we represented in its prime—his cave only missing the scrawled poetry that graced the walls of Ferraton’s cellar!