Franck Balthazar, Crozes-Hermitage

Franck Balthazar is unquestionably one of the Northern Rhône’s modern masters. His tiny, traditionally made Cornas bottlings have become some of the most sought-after Syrahs in France, and today’s Crozes-Hermitage offers a much less financially irresponsible way into his world. This is an opportunity to experience the haunting florality, dark fruit, pepper and savory complexity of Syrah from its grandest growing region, made by one of its defining contemporary vignerons, without cratering your credit card statement. In a category where the great names have become increasingly expensive and difficult to find, that makes this little 2024 Crozes feel almost illicitly reasonable.

Balthazar’s story is deeply rooted in Cornas. His grandfather Casimir established the domaine in 1931, followed by Franck’s father René, who produced wines during the great traditional era of the appellation. Franck returned to take over the family estate in 2002 and gradually built it into one of the reference points of the modern Northern Rhône. What makes his rise particularly compelling is that very little about the philosophy is modern at all. He looked backward, toward the old Cornas traditions of growers like Noël Verset and Auguste Clape: farming carefully, harvesting by hand, retaining stems, fermenting with indigenous yeasts and raising Syrah in old wood rather than dressing it up with new oak.

That same sensibility runs directly through this Crozes-Hermitage. The wine is 100% Syrah from roughly 37-year-old vines, with fruit coming from Mercurol and La Roche-de-Glun. Those two sources bring different geological personalities to the blend, including decomposed granite and the large rounded galets found on the Rhône’s old alluvial terraces. Balthazar employs up to 100% whole clusters, allows fermentation to begin with indigenous yeasts, macerates for roughly three weeks with regular pumpovers, then raises the wine for more than fifteen months in old 228-liter barrels and 600-liter vessels. There is no glossy new-oak makeover here. The entire process is designed to leave Syrah’s perfume, fruit, spice and earthy complexity intact.

And that is really the magic of Crozes-Hermitage when it lands in the hands of a grower like Balthazar. Great Northern Rhône Syrah possesses one of the most recognizable aromatic signatures in wine: violets and blackberries, cracked pepper and smoked meat, olives, herbs and something cool and stony underneath it all. Crozes can deliver that vocabulary with less mass and severity than the region’s grander appellations, which makes a wine like this especially compelling young. The 2024 vintage only amplifies that appeal. Rather than being a bruiser, it is a vintage of perfume, freshness and finesse, qualities that fit Balthazar’s increasingly refined style beautifully.

Serve the 2024 Crozes-Hermitage at around 60°F in a Burgundy stem, where its perfume has room to expand. The color is a vivid purple-ruby, immediately followed by an aromatic rush of blackberry, black raspberry and violet, with cracked pepper, olive, smoked herbs and crushed stone emerging underneath. The palate is medium-bodied and wonderfully energetic, with dark fruit wrapped around fine-grained tannins and fresh acidity rather than sheer weight. Whole-cluster fermentation contributes an additional lift of flowers, spice and savory complexity, while the old barrels leave the fruit completely unobscured. The finish is long, peppery and mineral, with violets and black fruit lingering after the wine is gone. Daube de boeuf provençale is a terrific partner: slow-cooked beef answers Syrah’s savory depth, while herbs, garlic and black olive pull directly at the wine’s peppery, floral and distinctly Rhône-like character.