George, I was doing a search for posts about the 1995 Chave Hermitage and came across this thread. I had forgotten about it, and I never saw your followup posts to mine. As I understand the story with the label for the 1995 Belle Helene, the intention was meant to emulate Gaja’s labels. That’s straight from the horse’s mouth since Stuart is the one who designed the label. Speaking of Stuart, I haven’t seen him in years, but he was a great guy to drink a bottle or two (or five or six!) with. As for the Belle Helen style, I don’t think it started getting the full-on oak treatment until Stephane started making the wine for his father (around 1998?). At least that was my understanding; I could be wrong. I also understand that the oak has been dialed back in more recent vintages. Either way, that 1995 is a gorgeous wine.
As to the 1995 Chave, I’m opening a bottle for Christmas dinner (though I won’t be opening my sole remaining bottle of 1995 Belle Helene with it!). I’ll post a new thread asking for suggestions on decanting, etc. Come to think of it, I’ll still have another bottle of the Chave, so maybe a side-by-side will be in the works someday!