100% Syrah from the Northern Rhône Valley, France.

From the importer (Kermit Lynch):

Of all the Northern Rhône producers we work with today, Domaine Marsanne was the first whose wines Kermit imported, back in the early 1980s. “My first taste of [the domaine’s] wine,” he wrote in the February 1982 newsletter, “was in Burgundy when Aubert de Villaine served the 1977 at lunch in Bouzeron.” After a brief period of importing the family’s Saint Josephs and Crozes-Hermitages, the family prioritized its small production for local clientele and Kermit went on to find other vignerons around the region’s sleepy villages who, in just a decade, helped turn such appellations as Cornas, Côte-Rôtie, Hermitage, and Saint-Joseph into the revered sources of Syrah they are today.

Then, a few years ago, Kermit recognized the Marsanne name on a wine list in Paris and, remembering his relationship with the family decades before, ordered a bottle. Providing great pleasure and typicity of its northern Rhône terroir, the bottle was enough to inspire renewed contact with the current generation of Marsannes, Jean-Claude and his two daughters, who produce not only exquisite Saint-Josephs but also this sublime Crozes-Hermitage from a small, but ideally situated plot of 50-year-old vines that Jean-Claude inherited from his grandmother. Dark, textured, and aromatic, this bottling boasts beautiful notes of black cherry, stones, and a hint of black olive. This textbook northern Rhône Syrah is perfectly suited to fall roasts and winter stews.