Couldn’t find anything in the archives that’s quite on the nose here, so throwing this out to the community:
Given Chave Hermitage and Allemand Reynard are now generally around the same price point, I’m curious what folks would consider money better spent (especially for storing away relatively recent vintages, say 2010+). As somebody actively boosting the % of high-end N. Rhone in the ol’ collection, I’d love to hear opinions on relative “value”, “age-ability”, and general preferences between the two.
Sadly, haven’t had the opportunity to taste enough across vintages to tease out a personal stylistic preference - personally have loved them both, but have recently allocated much more $$ towards Allemand. That said, with Reynard now essentially $400+, it’s becoming a tough pill to swallow with Chave available for the same or even less.
For me they are different animals. I love and prefer Chave, but only once it’s pretty old (eg, 20-25 years plus). Young Chave for me is much less distinguished than old Chave. So if you will be buying new releases, and are not extremely patient, I’d buy Allemand.
More in the Chave camp, more so because I have more of a history with the bottles. If I had spent more time with Allemand, I’d maybe biased differently. I’ve never been let down by Chave and do love well aged.
They are the two top Syrah wines in the world, for me. So you cannot really go wrong with either. Allemand seems harder to find than Chave, on release. Chave should continue to be made for many years to come, but all the rumors are that Allemand will stop making wine within a small number of years. It’s not clear if his son will take over, and then who knows what the quality of wine will be, or if it will maintain its lofty reputation.
I’d say if you need to allocate funds, I’d favor Allemand. Chave is easier to back fill, though prices do go up.
Chaillot is still great wine, but given that you can generally find Chave for similar price, I’d probably go for Chave if budget is a limiting factor. But same caveat, it could be that we see Allemand escalate in price significantly after Thiérry retires.
I’m good with putting Jamet up there, though I think you really have to look to the Cote Brun to really compare to Chave and Allemand. Regular Jamet is wonderful, but a different style from the other two.
If we make it “for the money”, then we really need to drop back to St. Joseph
They may be slightly different in style, but for my palate Jamet is very close in quality to both of them and is less than 1/2 the price… Cote Brune may be more comparable in terms of power, but costs the same or more.
I don’t think Chave and Allemand are made in an especially similar way; to me they’re quite different in style. Personally, I find that Allemand makes wine in a way that I can’t replicate very closely with any other producer, and I continue to be a buyer. An 04 Reynard I opened for my birthday last year was spectacular. Whereas I no longer buy Chave and I don’t miss it.
I agree that Jamet also make’s fabulous wines - there are a lot of great northern Rhone producers at the moment.
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