Paul Jaboulet-Aîné : La Maison Bleue 2019

Plenty of cloves and dried flowers with dark fruit, such as raspberries and blackberries. Some black truffle, too. Full-bodied with baked chocolate-pie and dark-fruit flavors. Full and warm at the end. Big, juicy wine. Give it a few years to come together. Drink from 2023.

Inky violet color. Heady, smoke- and spice-tinged cherry, blueberry, peony and incense aromas show excellent clarity; mineral and cured meat notes build with aeration. Juicy and energetic, especially in the context of the year, offering sweet red and blue fruit preserves, exotic spice flavors and a suave floral top note. Shows real energy on the seamless, strikingly long and floral-accented finish, which is firmed by well-integrated tannins.

The 2019 Hermitage La Maison Bleue showed well, with impressive notes of ripe black fruits, iron, leather, and hints of camphor in a medium- to full-bodied, fine, elegant profile. It’s well made and will benefit from 2–3 years of bottle age and evolve for 15+.

A superb Maison Bleue, the 2019 Hermitage La Maison Bleue seamlessly blends cherries and cassis into a purple mashup of fruit carried on rich, velvety waves of texture. Full-bodied and intense, it finishes complex and savory, adding notes of olive, clove and cedar on the long, luxurious finish. Already approachable, it should drink well through 2040.