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Appellation · France

Crozes-Hermitage

The Northern Rhône’s largest appellation, surrounding the Hermitage hill, and the affordable way into the region’s Syrah.

Crozes-Hermitage AOCcontinentalmoderate
What to expect in the glass

Medium-bodied dry red with blackberry, black pepper and a savoury, slightly meaty edge. Moderate tannin, good acidity, and drinkable at three to five years.

About Crozes-Hermitage

Crozes-Hermitage wraps around the Hermitage hill and accounts for well over half of all Northern Rhône production. It is the region’s volume appellation and its point of entry.

It is not one thing. The steep granite slopes north of the hill produce genuinely serious wine; the flat alluvial plain to the south produces a great deal of pleasant, straightforward Syrah. The label does not distinguish them, so the producer is the only guide.

At its best it offers the Northern Rhône signature — pepper, olive, dark fruit — with less concentration and much less money than Hermitage or Côte-Rôtie.

What the name means

Legal name
Crozes-Hermitage AOC
Type
Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée / Protégée (AOC / AOP)
Set by
INAO
Recognised
1937
Regulates
Origin, plus grape varieties, maximum yields, minimum ageing.

The delimited area, permitted varieties, maximum yields, minimum alcohol, pruning and training methods, and in many cases minimum ageing. Administered by INAO.

Grapes

Wines from here

red

Northern Rhône Syrah

Cool-climate Syrah at its most savoury: black pepper, olive and cured meat over dark fruit, with firm structure at moderate alcohol.

Soil and geology

Soils
Granite on the northern slopes; Deep stony alluvial terraces on the southern plain
Drainage
Variable
Water holding
Moderate

What it does to the vine. Two quite different terrains under one name. The granite hillsides north of the Hermitage hill are poor and steep; the flat, stony plain to the south is deeper and easier to farm, and produces the bulk of the appellation’s wine.

WineHQ describes soil in terms of what it demonstrably does — drainage, heat retention, water supply, rooting depth — and not in terms of flavours it is said to transmit. Vines take up ions, not aromas, and no mechanism has been demonstrated by which a mineral in the ground is tasted in the glass. See soil and drainage.

Rules worth knowing

Confirmed in the EU register

Crozes-Hermitage is registered as a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), file number PDO-FR-A0389, protected at EU level since 1973.

Article 107 of Regulation (EU) No 1308/2013

Specification published: Official Journal C 83, 12.3.2021 · Official Journal

Only the rules that change what to expect in the glass or on the label. WineHQ does not reproduce production specifications, and each entry carries the date it was last checked because appellation rules change.

The designation is confirmed above. WineHQ has not read this appellation’s production specification, so it publishes no yields, ageing minima or permitted-variety lists for it — those come from the document linked above, not from a summary of it.

What to eat, and how to serve it

Derived from this region’s signature styles. Each is listed separately, because a region does not have one serving temperature.

Northern Rhône Syrah

Serve at 16–18°C (cool room temperature).

Try with steak au poivre, steak or venison and game.

Where to go next

Places worth trying if you like this one — neighbours, rivals, and the obvious step across.

  • Hermitage — A single south-facing granite hill above Tain, and for two centuries the most expensive red wine in France after the Bordeaux first growths.
  • Saint-Joseph — A fifty-kilometre ribbon of vineyard down the right bank, ranging from serious hillside Syrah to very ordinary flatland wine.
  • Cornas — A small suntrap of an appellation making the darkest, most uncompromising Syrah in the Rhône — red wine only, no white, no blending.

Sources

Sources consulted