WTN: Lots of Hermitage at Grant's

John Chapman got a bunch of us together at Grant's Steakhouse for a big Hermitage lineup. Good to see some old faces again and meet Matt Latuchie while he was in town, and a mostly fun lineup of wines.

Starting whites

2002 Gaston Chiquet Champagne Brut
Disgorged 05/02/10, back label code L-OR02-10. A little simple and one-dimensional, full of bright pear and white fruited flavours with gentle yeasty accents and a surprising touch of sweetness on the back end. There's pleasant acidity here and a glass goes down nicely, but it's not particularly interesting.
2007 Meßmer Burrweiller Schloßgarten Im Goldenen Jost Weissburgunder Großes Gewächs
Wild aromatics - a compelling, unique fragrance combining all sorts of floral elements, burning candle wax, metallic notes and rich white fruited flavours. Very rich, full bodied and powerful, combining ripe fruit in the mouth with a vivid minerality, creamy notes and impressive acidity, finishing long with a touch of glyceral sweetness on the back end.
2005 Dönnhoff Oberhäuser Brücke Riesling Spätlese
Starting to show some signs of development, hints of petrol and smoke on the nose amidst powerful tropical and red fruited flavours and bright florality. This is very ripe and sweet, Auslese-like but there's impressive balance with bright acidity beneath all the baby fat and primary fruit, and a saline mineral character that emerges with some time. Very nice, though this really needs to be left alone for some time.

Older Jaboulet La Chapelle

1983 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle
Starts out feeling quite advanced and tired with pale red fruits and faint balsamic notes, tasting like a pretty generic, tired old wine. With some air it really freshens up though as the aromatics become more saline, earthy and meaty and the fruit starts to deepen in complexion. Certainly suffers in comparison to the '89, but still quite pleasant.
1989 Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle
Hard to believe this is 20+ years old. A fantastic, intoxicating aromatic profile combining all sorts of sauvage leathery, earthy and iron flavours with deep red fruits and cigar smoke. In the mouth it comes across incredibly youthful with tremendous power and a sense of rusticity; ripe red and dark fruited flavours over savoury meaty and earthy notes with grainy tannins still lurking in the background and the stuffing and balance to age a while longer. Very impressive.

Chave and the Portuguese menace

1994 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage
Flat out wow. This comes across perfectly mature and ready to drink now. Beautiful developed aromatics combining a vivid porky meatiness, gentle red fruits and forestal earthy and herbal notes; really polished and elegant in the mouth with the tannins fully resolved and all the flavour and structural elements merging into a seamless whole that conveys flavour with a lightness of touch and incredible finesse. Wonderful wine.
1997 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage
First bottle corked. Damnit.
2000 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage
Young young young. This almost feels a little brutish and clumsy compared to the beautifully finessed and resolved '94; packed with bright fruit and meaty elements around a spine of firm tannins and bright acids but very primary and raw right now. I'd love to taste this in several years, but hands off for now.
1997 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage
So John produced a second bottle of the '97 to replace the first corked one... this was nastier, reeking even more offensively of TCA. Screw you Portugal!

Delas Les Bessards
The only flight I really disliked - found the wines too modern and ripe for my liking, closer in style to any really ripe warm climate Syrah with overripe fruit and little balance.
1999 Delas Frères Hermitage Les Bessards
Ugh. A powerhouse of massively ripe, slightly syrupy dark fruits with a roasted tinge to the flavours. Monolithic, one-note wine that was hard to drink after the first sip.
1998 Delas Frères Hermitage Les Bessards
Not quite as massively overripe and heavy as the '99; this starts out with a nice scent of meaty and gamey notes leading into a palate full of rich, dark plummy fruit with a touch of new oak on the back end. It's a bit too ripe and modern for my tastes and not particularly interesting.

Chapoutier
The eye-opener of the night - I've had very little experience with Chapoutier's high end wines, but have heard them panned a lot for being too modern in style. I quite enjoyed the Pavillon, and the Le Méal was stunning, offering everything I'd expect in a Hermitage with really impressive balance.
1999 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Le Pavillon
Quite impressive. This is big, powerful but nicely balanced, combining rich dark fruited flavours with savoury earthy, smoky and tarry accents. There's plenty of concentration and gloss to the fruit, but also surprising acidity that gives it a sense of freshness and keeps it quite elegant.
2001 M. Chapoutier Ermitage Le Méal
Shocker of the night (in a very good way). I was expecting something rather slick, fruit-driven and modern, more in line with the Le Pavillon, but the aromatics here are all leathery funk, forestal earth and smoked meats. There's plenty of ripe Syrah fruit here, but the other savoury and funky elements provide a nice counterpoint, and there's fantastic balance with a spine of bright acids and firm tannins. Very young, but nicely balanced now and I'd love to see how this will age.

Fun night, thanks again all!

[David M. Bueker]

Looks like a great evening.

Many 2002 Champagnes seem to be showing nothing much more than simple, youthful fruit. For my tastes they are just so full of extract that it is going to take years for them to show their true greatness.

Interesting note on the Messmer. I have not had their GG wines - heck I've never even seen them for sale.

Glad you were able to try the '89 La Chapelle. It's an eye opening wine - one of the true benchmarks. Shame about the Chave issues. I am also surprised that you were favorably disposed to the Chapoutier wines. Please turn in your AFWE membership card.

Sounds like an interesting evening.

When you consider that the entire appellation covers just 117 hectares (the 2nd smallest in Bordeaux, Pomerol, has 750 hectares...), you guys had a huge chunk of production.

I know Hermitage very little and have certainly never attended a tasting of just that.
So I'm jealous!

I have a 96 Delas in my cellar, a 2000 La Chapelle (I've been told not to expect great things...), and a 99 Chave.

All the best,
Alex R.

Salil, thanks for the great notes on a very interesting line-up.

I've had La Chapelle from '88, '97, '98 and '00, but never any of the touchpoint vintages, really. I have the '89 in the cellar but am afraid to touch it for another 5 years or more...

On the Delas bottles, my feeling is that there is a decent amount of variability in bottles sourced here in Boston--as a bunch of us bought the 98 and 99 and some have been great and others cooked/stewed/damaged--which perhaps your bottles suffered a tad from? Also, there is no consistency, seemingly, between the two vintages. Here are my notes and I know some of my drinking companions have had similarly mixed results. When they are good, I think they are quite good--despite what is a fairly extracted style that you might not care for regardless.

July 2009:

1998 Delas Freres Hermitage Les Bessards. Right off the bat, this is showing an advanced, fading color and it smells of roasted cherry fruit and caramel. These obvious signs of heat damage are a big bummer to me, as I own bottles of this wine purchased from the same source at the same time. In any event, the roasted nose also manages to show some interesting notes running beneath, such as mace, fruitcake and rough raw leather. In the mouth, it is big and forthright, with lots of dark caramel apple and sour cherry flavors supported by fine spices. However, the finish is again marred by the roasted character.

1999 Delas Freres Hermitage Les Bessards. This wine is much fresher. The really nice bouquet offers up aromas of forest greens, tobacco leaf, soft suede, rocks, spiced blueberries and sweet raspberries. It is firm and structured in the mouth, yet is fully-fruited and densely-textured. A liberal dusting of oak spices rides atop a big resounding burst of thick dark red fruit and coffee bean flavors. There is plenty of extract and layers to this, giving it a cushioned feeling. It is still somewhat youthful, though, with tannins more of an after-thought than a detraction. It offers fine drinking right now. This was my and the group’s wine of the night.

November 2011:

1998 Delas Freres Hermitage Les Bessards. The first bottle of this I tasted in August 2009 was roasted and cooked, but this bottle (from the same source) was in excellent condition and showed quite well on this evening. Here we have a big, boisterous and broad-shouldered nose of cassis, blueberry, black licorice, white pepper, tobacco leaf, limestone, tire tread and an interesting twist of wintergreen that just gets better and better with more and more time in the glass. It is a mouth-filling wine, for sure, and is still showing a bit chewy-textured and moderately tannic, but with a creamy, lush and full-flavored mid-palate that definitely shows some serious extract but manages to stay balanced by a streak of acidic twang. Flavors of white pepper, ashy earth, chorizo and dark cherry and black currant fruit show excellent concentration and lead to a full, but more blocky finish. This is certainly tasty now, but will likely improve over the next 5 years, when I would try again.

-Michael

Sounds like a great dinner. I've been wanting to drink more German weissburgunders, but of course my wine to-do list is rather long, so who knows when I'll get around to it. Probably in Germany as that is not a category that gets a ton of shelf space in the US.