Editing Syrah (section)

=== Rise to fame ===
The wines that made Syrah famous were those from Hermitage, the hill above the town [[Tain-l'Hermitage]] in northern Rhône, where an [[Hermitage (religious retreat)|hermitage]] ([[chapel]]) was built on the top, and where De Stérimberg is supposed to have settled as a [[hermit]] after his crusades. Hermitage wines have for centuries had a reputation for being powerful and excellent. While Hermitage was quite famous in the 18th and 19th centuries, and attracted interest from foreign [[oenophile]]s, such as [[Bordeaux wine|Bordeaux]] enthusiast [[Thomas Jefferson]], it lost ground and foreign attention in the first half of the 20th century.<ref name="OCW Hermitage">Entry on ''"Hermitage"'' in J. Robinson (ed), ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'', Third Edition, p. 344, Oxford University Press 2006, {{ISBN|0-19-860990-6}}.</ref>

In the 18th and the first half of the 19th centuries, most Hermitage wine that left France did so as a blending component in Bordeaux wines. In an era when "[[claret]]s" were less powerful than today, and before appellation rules, red wines from warmer regions would be used for improvement (or [[adulteration]], depending on the point of view) of Bordeaux wines. While Spanish and Algerian wines are also known to have been used for this purpose, top Bordeaux châteaux would use Hermitage to improve their wines, especially in weaker vintages.<ref name="oz_p_247" /><ref name="OCW Adulteration and fraud">Entry on ''"Adulteration and fraud"'' in J. Robinson (ed), ''"The Oxford Companion to Wine"'', Third Edition, pp. 4-5, Oxford University Press 2006, {{ISBN|0-19-860990-6}}.</ref>