Crozes Hermitage Les Fées Brunes

Jean-Luc Colombo has been a renowned enologist in the Rhône Valley since the early 1980s. His consultations at prestigious estates across the Rhône quickly earned him a reputation for helping produce incredible expressions of this rugged terroir. But his greatest contribution to the wine world is the exceptional wines he crafts alongside his wife, Anne, and daughter, Laure. The Cornas-based Colombo winery has earned impressive international recognition bringing modern viticultural practices to the region — and for creating beautifully concentrated, balanced, and fresh styles of syrah. Living among their vineyards and wetlands, the family have been committed to sustainable farming, achieving organic certification for their estate vineyards from Ecocert in 2016.

Crozes Hermitage is the largest of all the northern appellations of the Rhône with the vineyards surrounding the Hermitage appellation. "Les Fées Brunes" (The Brunette Fairies) is made from 60-year-old vines from a single vineyard planted on the terraced granite slopes.

Grapes are harvested by hand into small, shallow containers and vinified traditionally, undergoing a three weeks maceration post fermentation. The wine is aged six months in oak barrels (15% new oak and 85% in one- to four-year old barrels).

On the nose, the wine is intense; reminiscent of blackberries and licorice, supported by notes of black pepper. The palate offers a wonderful combination of the New World and Old World styles as this wine has lots of fresh cherry and black plum fruit flavors against an intense, spicy, mineral background.