E Guigal Ermitage Ex Voto 2019

Deep dark ruby color with mauve tints. The nose opens to black fruits, leather, licorice, coffee flavor and oriental spices. The palate begins with a powerful attack with richness and an important tannic structure. This wine expression fully the terroir trough its finesse and the strength of its tannins. Overall, a wine with great ageing potential, structured and concentrated with a rare intensity of flavor and color.

Critical Acclaim

100 Jeb Dunnuck

A barrel sample that just about made my eyes roll back in my head, the 2019 Ermitage Ex Voto has perfection written all over it. Full-bodied, deep, powerful, and structured, it has quintessential Hermitage notes of cassis, ground pepper, new leather, crushed stone, and violets. It brings lots of tannins and structure, but this has a beautiful buffer of ripe, concentrated fruit. If youre lucky enough to get any of this, do your best to hide bottles for 7-8 years.

97 Wine Spectator

This blockbuster is stunning in power and complexity. Thick, dark, concentrated, and chewy, with flavors of cherry preserves, salted black licorice and macerated plum, forming a brooding, well-meshed core. Spice, tobacco and mesquite ash notes weave through, adding depth and length. Delicious now, this will only improve for those who have the patience to cellar. Best from 2025 through 2045. 50 cases imported.

96 James Suckling

Enormously ripe and dense this is an imposing Hermitage with huge black fruit character, wrapped around the very compact tannic core. Some licorice, bitter chocolate and roasted coffee beans at the very long, structured finish. Needs some time, but already impresses from the first sniff! From four plots on the hill of Hermitage. Matured in 100% new oak for 42 months. Drinkable now, but best from 2025.

96Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate

The 2019 Ermitage Ex Voto is structured and perfumed quite differently from the La-La cuves. It opens with aromas of oak, clove, spices and gentian. Full-bodied, dense and firmly built, it delivers a concentrated core of fruit and broad, authoritative tannins, concluding with a beautifully mordant, faintly mineral finish that shades into notes of tobacco and spice. Its intrinsic power and distinctly solar profile demand a proper stint in the cellar.