2020 St Joseph Ste Epine
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Tasting notes
The 2020 Saint Joseph Sainte-Epine is another Hermitage look-alike, with a slightly Bessards-like character in its ripe blue fruits, liquid violets, burning embers, and leather-slanted aromas and flavors. It's more inward, reserved, and focused compared to the François de Tournon but is beautifully concentrated and balanced, with ripe, polished tannins. The purity of fruit here is seriously impressive. It offers plenty of pleasure today yet has another 10-15 years of prime drinking and, I suspect, a gradual decline thereafter. It's slightly more plush and soft compared to the 2015, yet I think at the same quality level.
Critic scores
Average Score
Jeb Dunnuck
Josh Raynolds
More reviews and scores
Brilliant purple color. Pungent dark berries, licorice, smoked meat and potpourri on the highly perfumed nose. Shows very good depth as well as energy on the palate, which offers nervy, spice-accented cassis, bitter cherry and black pepper flavors that become sweeter as the wine opens up. Steadily building tannins frame a very long, focused finish that echoes the floral and smoke notes.
Tasted from barrel, the 2020 Saint Joseph Sainte-Epine, from the Saint-Jean de Muzols portion of the appellation, features classic granite-derived notes of crushed stone and restraint, but it also has plentiful notes of raspberries and black olive. Medium to full-bodied, it's dense and structured yet has a long, silky finish.
Tasted from barrel, the 2020 Saint Joseph Sainte-Epine, from the Saint-Jean de Muzols portion of the appellation, features classic granite-derived notes of crushed stone and restraint, but it also has plentiful notes of raspberries and black olive. Medium to full-bodied, it's dense and structured yet has a long, silky finish.