(93-94+)/100
Despite the overall shortage of wine in this vintage and their resolute attachment to Mourvedre as a core component, Hecht and Bannier manages to add at least one source and come up with around the same 300 cases of 2010 Faugeres as has characterized their previous vintages. Ripe blackberry and dark chocolate are suffused with peat, smoky black tea, crushed stone, and iodine on a sumptuously ripe yet piquant palate, and there is admirable lift as well as oscillating, even electrically-charged interaction of meat juices, herbal essences, implosive berry concentrate and myriad evocations of this mineral to the long, layered “Here is an instance,” notes Francois Bannier, “where 2010 and 2009 come quite close together in character.” US$35
