2023 Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage Syrah 6pk 6x750ml

Alain Graillot built his reputation on a simple, unyielding principle: Crozes-Hermitage can rival its more famous neighbor, Hermitage itself, when the fruit is pure and the hand is patient. Organically farmed vines, hand-harvested, whole-cluster fermented—this is Syrah made the way the Romans would recognize it. The hill of Hermitage has been sacred ground since 1224, when the Knight Gaspard de Sterimberg returned from the Albigensian Crusade and built a refuge on the slope. Louis XIII made it a wine of the court. Louis XIV sent 200 casks to King Charles II. The Romanovs imported it. In the 19th century, Bordeaux chateaux blended Hermitage into their wines to add structure and depth. That's the lineage this bottle sits inside.

The 2023 vintage delivers what Graillot does best: balance, drive, freshness. Whole-cluster fermentation pulls in the stemmy, herbal complexity—pencil shaving, cedar, licorice—while the fruit stays vibrant. Dark cherries, spiced plums, wild herbs. Animal, leather, forest floor notes layered with fresh plum. Medium-bodied with fine tannins, the kind of texture that makes you reach for the glass again before you've set it down.

Vinous scored it 96 points. That's not a Crozes-Hermitage score. That's a statement. A 6-pack at $58.17 means you're paying under $10 a bottle for a wine that belongs in the Hermitage conversation. The kind of Syrah that makes supermarket wine taste emotionally vacant.