Just about perfection in a glass, the 2017 Hermitage Ex Voto Blanc is a tour de force, offering a heavenly bouquet of white currants, quince, toasted bread, spice box, and assorted flower oil-like nuances. Deep, full-bodied, and massively concentrated on the palate, it has a distinct salty minerality, a stacked mid-palate, and bright acidity, all making for a Hermitage Blanc that needs 4-5 years of bottle age, yet will keep for two decades or more.

Lush, exotic and thoroughly beguiling, with waves of creamed peach, pear, quince and yellow apple rolling through, laced with subtle threads of quinine, chamomile and acacia before picking up a flourish of hazelnut and bitter almond on the finish. A real showstopper. Marsanne and Roussanne. Drink now through 2037. 250 cases made, 40 cases imported.

Vivid straw-yellow. Highly perfumed scents of ripe pear, nectarine, lemon rind, honey and pungent Sowers, with a smoky mineral overtone building steadily. OVers palate-staining orchard and pit fruit Savors that are complemented by suggestions of toasted nuts and vanilla. Weighty yet distinctly energetic as well, betraying no excess fat. Delivers emphatic mineral thrust and repeating Sorality on the strikingly long, penetrating Ynish, which leaves a suggestion of dried pear brandy behind.

Another terrific year for this wine, the 2017 Ermitage Ex Voto Blanc offers up smoky, bacony aromas, which add a mouthwatering note to the wine's citrus and melon flavors. It's full-bodied, maybe not as rich, dense or age-worthy as the 2016, yet with great freshness and incisive length.