Last weekend while at Hospice du Rhone 7 of us got together and rented a ranch house on the coast and drank plenty of great wine. One of the side attractions was a 10 year vertical of Chave hermitage that was put together starting with the 89 vintage and ending with the 99 vintage with the exception of the missing ??? bottle of 91. It wasn’t held in the worlds greatest lab setting but hey the bonfire kept us warm and the smores were quite tasty after we went through the vertical once. We tasted these out of Riedel sommelier syrah stems and all the wines were decanted for 4 hours before consumption began. Due to the conditions I was only able to jot down some brief notes on some of the wines so here goes.

89 Hermitage rouge – Rich, smoky, lots of dark fruit with plum and currant on the nose, great tannin structure. For my taste I would drink these up over the next 4 or 5 years

90 Hermitage rouge – Holy @#%* Batman! This was my wine of the entire weekends festivities. Black or deep deep purple in color, Huge ripe concentrated fruit, tar, pepper, herb, spices, licorice, meat, bacon fat. When we decanted this wine I snuck a sip and thought it to be extremely closed possibly a sin to have opened, but the 4+ hours in decanter opened it up enough to see what it was going to blossom into. My notes on this were taken the next morning while I was cooking up pancakes and scrambled eggs, 18 hours after being decanted. Hold unless you decant well in advance or have patience enough to sit and swirl, and swirl, and swirl.

91 Hermitage rouge – MIA

92 Hermitage rouge – Great balance, cherry, slightly minty and gamey , elegant tannin structure. This wine will probably age but not get any better, it is drinking great now.

93 Hermitage rouge – hmmmm? The lightest colored hermitage of the evening, nice soft black and red fruit, not very concentrated. medium in body. Drink

94 Hermitage rouge – Purple in color spice, ripe blackberry, anise, and meaty smoke flavors. concentrated, plum, cassis, mineral, bits of cherry.

95 Hermitage rouge -Deep purple and complex, currant, green olive, black currants, mineral, tar, flowers, earthy, mushroom, herb, perfect tannin structure.

96 Hermitage rouge – Purple, medium body. Loads of tannin, game, earth, shrooms, smoke, toast, acidity? smoke, cassis, fennel licorice, fresh cigar box.

97 Hermitage rouge - The color is a dense purple. cassis, minerals, herbs, game, and intense licorice, and spice, blackberry, sweet tannin.

98 Hermitage rouge - TANNIN!! Great concentration of black fruit with a beautiful purple color. I couldn’t ever get this wine to come around in my glass so I deduce that this needs time and lots of it.

99 Hermitage rouge - WOW! Deep, deep purple almost black in color, Elegant, Soft. At first approach it didn’t have much on the nose, but after about 5 or so minutes in the glass it opened up with a fabulous nose, to say this is full bodied would almost be an understatement, ripe red berry and blackberry flavors, cassis, spice and mineral with lots of mocha and chocolate. This wine is drinking incredibly now but I think it will blossom into the complexity of the 90 with a few more years of age.

My favorites three in this order were: 90, 99, and 95. All these wines were amazing but with being judged against itself in different vintages some stood out more than others for being incredible.

great tasting, i'm a chave fan!!!

my rate "1999 1990">1998>1995

Chave is one of my favorite Hermitage producers. I have a couple of bottles of the '78 left that are wonderful now.

Hey Brat! I've had but one Chave Hermitage up to now, but interestingly enough, it was the "MIA" 1991! Looking back on my notes from 8-10-01, here is what I wrote:

"Color of deep red, with bits of purple. Smokey aromas, along with herbaceous tones of freshly crushed rosemary. Tastes of spice (which improved the second night) along with warm, stewed black fruit. A respectable finish, medium/full bodied. The flavors snuck up on you on the midpalate and finish, and were a bit more powerful on the second day"

Overall, I enjoyed the wine. Although the famous MBD rating scale was not in existence last Aug., based on my above notes, I would rate this an 88.

MplsBurgundyDude-
Do you remember if you decanted the wine? My experience with Chave is they need time or decanting. They usually aren't too great out of the gate.

WB--as I do not own a decanter, I definitely didn't truly decant. I may have left the bottle open for as much as an hour-don't recall that for sure. If I did, it probably wasn't for real long, as I would have figured that at 10 years old, I wouldn't need to decant or aerate much. What do you think about that?

I was lucky enough to attend a vertical tasting last December with J-L Chave of Hermitage Blanc and Rouge, back to the 70's. I thought the wines were superb, but I was really impressed by those from lesser vintages like 91 and 82. The full report/background/photos is on my web site, but here are the TNs for the reds:

Hermitage Rouge 1999
Lovely seam of deep, dense black fruit that is creamy, with chocolate and plum depth and a little bit of earthy richness. Gorgeous palate, a really silky texture and flooded with sweet berry fruit intermingled with vanilla and lots of pure, silky finesse from fine tannins and balanced acidity. Very pure, very long, and excellent. Surprisingly approachable, but seems balanced and built for the long haul.

Hermitage Rouge 1998
A little bit reductive at first, then those schisty, gravelly qualities break through, along with leather, game and deep berry fruit. The palate is powerful and muscular, quite sinewy with chewy black fruit and massive, dense tannins. This has wonderful concentration and is extremely long. Excellent and again, a profound wine to be cellared.

Hermitage Rouge 1995
Wonderfully fruity, open nose with raspberry - almost jammy - aromas and a background of gentle oak, again supported by a gamy, animal depth. This has fine structure again, with a big, clamping streak of tannins over firm, muscular fruit and again terrific length. Excellent.

Hermitage Rouge 1991
Distinctive, complex nose of amimal, game, leather and pepper. Meaty, dense and powerful imperession. The palate is loaded with ripe, mouth-filling fruit, given nerve and sinew by a great thrust of acidity and cherry-skin tartness that freshens the finish. Lovely, complex and fruity stuff with good length. Excellent.

Hermitage Rouge 1988
Another powerful nose, schisty, gravelly mineral qualities, but plenty of sweet, perfumed fruit with notes of caramel and again a lovely animal edge. The palate is quite dry and savoury, with a serious, tannin and acid backbone and a nice fleshy texture. The fruit does push through and has plenty of ripe sweetness, but the balance of this vintage doesn't sing quite as purely. Jean-Louis thought this was rather closed, so my verdict of very good indeed might well turn out to be too cautious.

Hermitage Rouge 1982
This was the ice cube vintage, and though a legendary claret year, is generally regarded as only moderately good in the northern Rhône. This has a beautifully perfumed nose, with fantastic, almost Burgudian qualities of game, blood, truffle and wild, fine herb and briarwood notes. Leather and pepper too. The palate has lovely cherry-like sweet fruit that is beautifully elegant, fleshy, ripe and round. There is plenty of savoury mellow tannin and acidity, cedar and lovely integrated flavours. Absoluetly delightful. Outstanding drinking now, though maybe deserves an "official" very good indeed/excellent classification within this line up of wines, most of which are 10-years off their prime.

Hermitage Rouge 1971
Gorgeous perfume here; old roses and violets, spice, cherry and raspberry. Little background notes of leather and coffee. Lovely silky texture, with a delightful sense of resolution: sweet, mellow berry fruits, soft acidity and fine, svelte tannins. Very elegant, very lovely texture and again drinking beautifully, though not quite the lush density of the 1982. Very good indeed/excellent.

Tom

As my experience with Hermitage is somewhat limited, what is a normal price for a Chave Hermitage Rouge? Based on the notes, it sounds like the 1999 is worth seeking out. Thanks

IW

winescot, I've never been able to figure out why the '82 vintage is not regarded as a great one in the Rhone. ALL the '82 Rhones I've had have been wonderful, especially the La Chapelle.

MBD, you don't need a decanter. Any clean, dry glass container will function fine.

italian wino:

chave also makes an excellent st. joseph bottling called "offerus" - both the '99 and '00 bottlings are excellent, with the '00 being richer than the '00. they retail for $25-30.

Board-o,

Yep. It was a fantastically hot vintage and was before temperature control was common (hence the "ice cube vintage" at Chave, and I think some producers were caught out and let fermentation run-away, reducing quality and finesse in some wines.

Tom

I bumped this up for it was one of the only threads that had a TN (though brief) on the 1999 Chave Hermitage Rouge. Has anyone else out there had this since the last post. I was presented with 3 loevely bottles of this just put out for display at one of my regular shops. It sure seems like one heck of a wine to put down for 10-15 years of patience.