Yeah, I don’t have a big sample size (or a huge degree of confidence in my opinion on this tbh), but I’ve found 90s/80s Chave to be more restrained and complex, while more recent Chave is bigger and fruitier (while still great, just different!). By contrast, I’ve never loved a bottle of 90s-era Allemand–I’ve found them a big hard and edgy in their middle age–while by contrast more recent Allemand is just so complete and polished (in a good way).
Perhaps in another 10 years, we’ll see that recent Chave is best of all. Or not. We’ll find out!
Interesting… I haven’t had much Chave - only the 2002 vintage, which I found to be very nice and well made, but perhaps a touch generic. I did really enjoy it though, but there was nothing about it that really stood out as unique. It was one of maybe 20 bottles opened that day though, so it’s hard to remember specifics of any one wine. In my cellar, I have 04 and 13, neither of which I’ve tried yet.
I think of all three as leaner vintages (Rhone experts, correct me if that’s wrong). Do these characteristics hold for vintages like these?
the 2004 Chave is drinking very well now. had a few weeks ago. if you only have 1 then maybe save a few more years but it’s showing great now.
as far as vintages, in my experience chave is one of the few producers that i’d be happy drinking any vintage. i can think of many random vintages over the past 30+ years that i’ve had that showed great. whites too.
These are some interesting points and remind me of an interview I read recently with Jean-Louis Grippat, who talked about how the more modern and clean winemaking results in a different style of wines and importantly also leads to more homogenous winemaking across the region…
Facts can be both normative and empirical at any given point in time. The concept of terroir is likely vague and fluid enough to encompass both. But that mean the lack of Brett is also “terroir”
Everybody who states that more recent Chave (Jean-Louis) is less good than older (Gerard) will be proved wrong with time. JL makes the wine slightly less rustic and with purer fruit, but it’s still traditional great Hermitage in need of cellaring (and with potential for decades).
I think for most people (myself included), the breakpoint for Chave comes in 99. The wine becomes more linear, more boring and less interesting. I don’t mean to suggest it’s bad, but it simply loses the thing that made it “Chave”. It’s also drinks oakier (I don’t know enough about Jean-Louis’s oak choices to say if he uses more oak.) I’ve had the 2004 a number of times in the last few years - it should be a glorious wine given how 2004s are drinkng generally, and it’s an angular and slightly generic Syrah. As always, opinions vary - I get the sense that people who love a lot of oak in their Syrah quite like the current rendition of Chave.
I also agree about Allemand - post 2002 the wines become a lot less rustic, which really makes a difference on the palate. I think there’s an entire generation in France for whom the years around 2002 really represent a turning point into becoming the iconic producers we think of today - Allemand, Mugnier, Fourrier, the regime at Gibourg, etc.
Yeah–I think I’m more in Gerhard’s camp, but it’s a little hard to know as most of the folks who share their Chave with me won’t open their younger stuff, feeling that it’s not ready and will disappoint. By coincidence, we’re doing some Chave this Wed. So far 2001 and 1995, not sure what other bottles will be but likely older rather than younger.
You all talk as if you have deep experience. I have had the 95, 98 and 99 recently, and they are very young. As I would assume most vintages post 99 would be. Allemand’s wines are much more approachable at an earlier date. I really do think comparing these two producers vintage-wise is not necessarily a great idea. At least you need to be prepared for the wines from the same vintages to show very differently.
I had that 1995 a few weeks ago, after so many years of being pretty ferociously not-ready it has finally turned the corner. Good wine, if not at the same level as 1990 and 1991. Edit - of more recent vintages I’ve only had 2000 within the last several years which then came across as a bit awkward if not backwards, plump and a little dull. Need to retry at some point before long.
I remain unconvinced that the wines made today will age the same for a number of reasons.
First, drinking the wines from similar vintages shows significant differences. The 97 Chave has always been a very acid driven wine and it shows extremely differently to relatively lean vintages of post 99 Chave (like 2001 for example).
Second, I would be surprised if the wines weren’t different - it’s a different winemaker! “Chave” isn’t a big champagne house making wines to a style - Jean Louis clearly has his own ideas as to what he wants to do with the wines, and they’re not the same as his father’s (nor should they be). To me, the decision to make a 2003 Cuvee Cathelin is indicative of a winemaking shift. The regular cuvee is extremely ripe, so making a more extracted version is a choice. Allemand, by contrast, declassified 2003 because he felt the quality wasn’t there.
My argument is not that the new styled chave will not age, but that I expect it to age more like Guigal’s LaLas. More oak, more extraction, more power. That’s not what I look for in northern Rhone, but that’s a stylistic choice.
How well do you know Chave’s wines? We know they age. I do not remember exactly when young Chave started out, but he made the 95 which I have followed since it was young. It seemed a lighter less extracted wine than his father’s style, but it has added weight and depth over time. I remember John Gilman, in particular, was skeptocal about young Chave’s wines, but I do not agree with him. The 2003 was a special and strange vintage. And it is not that Allemand is without faults. His 2005s and some ensuing vintages had huge problems with volatile acidity. I used to buy a couple of cases of Allemand until then (nobody knew about him), but I am back buying in the small quantities that I can get.
The 1995 was still mostly made by Gerard - it was, as I recall, Jean-Louis’s first year back from military service. It’s quite unlikely he would have had time to change all that much about the winemaking; domaines are a bit like ships that way, I think. To me (and I think to many people) the real shift is in 99, once Jean-Louis has had time to implement his ideas more fully.
I completely agree the 2003 was an odd vintage, and it would have been well nigh impossible for a larger commercial operation like Chave to declassify their Hermitage (that wine is not drinkable). But the decision to make a Cuvee Cathelin is telling - a special more extracted cuvee in 2003 is an additional choice to lean into the vintage.
Allemand is certainly not without faults! No producer is. He screwed up the 2011 Chaillot - that wine is still green, though at a recent Reynard vertical the 2011 Reynard finally showed OK. The wines can be at times bretty and can have some VA, but overall I think they’re the best and most unique wines being made in the northern Rhône today.
I do complexly agree with you that it would be pointless to match vintages on these wines for a dinner, other than maybe the late 90s (though that’s not yet Allemand at his best).
I cannot recall ever to have heard that Gerard largely made the 1995. On the contrary, and I was extremely interested in the topic AT THE TIME, that the 1995 was the center of attention just because it was Jean-Louis’s first vintage. (I remember this now; John Gilman used to compare the 94 with later vintages.)
Jon tends to place the dividing line at 99. When someone starts taking over a domaine and when their ideas are fully implemented are not the same thing. Dujac is a good example of this as well.
Chave and Allemand really have nothing, outside of grape, that align…its more of a discussion around qualitiative measures based on stylistic changes, whether i te tional or unintentional due to vintage.
Much like any BDX discussion will have Mark/Robert pontificatig for the old days and rusticity vs
Jeff Leve and modern clean winemaking, its really a subject of personal taste. Chave will have it’s fans regardless of vintage, and then it will also have the 2001 and prior vintage fans and the 2003 and forward vintage fans. People who liked Chave pre-2002 are allowed to not like the more fruit driven pure expressions of Chave…where they should all align is that the wines will age and eveolve, just differently, and if they don’t enjoy that evolution and want to put their $ elsewhere its okay.
I don’t have enough experience with Allemand outside a half dozen bottles to really discuss other than I found the wines to be very singular and unique expressions of Syrah.