2006 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage- France, Rhône, Northern Rhône, Hermitage (5/30/2017)
Very glad I got to taste this blind as it reinforces my opinion that Chave has moved in far too modern a direction post-1998.
Rather modern in style, ripe fruit, a bit too extracted. I found it well made but boring. It should be noted that other people liked it a lot more than I did and someone who drinks a lot of Chave even pegged it blind. When he guessed Chave I did say that if he was right it had to be from 1999 or later.
For better or worse I’m priced out of Chave these days so it’s more an academic exercise than anything else. But good to know that some vintages can still have that old Chave magic.
We did a fairly extensive Chave vertical a couple of years ago. I am with with you, Jean-Louis seems to have gone very modern and lost that great Chave perfume in the process. The once exception I found was 2010.
I disagree - you should just give enough time in the bottle to these Hermitages …
the most drinkable post 2000 is 2004 (ok, and 2002), but not even this is really mature …
I drank a decent number of pre-1999 Chaves both young and old and I definitely see a stylistic change. It’s possible that the new style will start tasting like Chave again with enough age but that will only be known with time. I have not tried either the 2004 or the 2010 so I can’t comment on those specifically.
A group of us did a dinner with 00, 01, and 04 recently, and those all seemed pretty classic Chave (if mostly on the young side). One thing to consider is that 2006 was a fairly warm/ripe vintage in N. Rhone, which may factor in to the perception of “modern”.
I agree that Jean-Louis has made - very carefully and cautiously - improvements to vineyards and wine-making since he took more and more over, but I would not call them “modern” in any way … neither does he use more new oak (rather reduced it), usually 10-20% (except the Cathelin) nor use cold soaking, nor complete destemming (yes, partially depending on the vintage, but Gerard did it, too) etc. … he improved selecting/sorting the grapes, putting them as quick and clean as possible into the fermenting vats, he has added some INOX tanks since 1991 (!), but uses still also concrete and open oak vats (foot crushing) … he improved temperature control (e.g. to avoid any volatile acidity) … and improved the final blending (by sorting out 30-70% of the harvest and selling it to the negoce …) … being very careful with the press wine … etc. …
The production is some 36.000 - 42.000 bottles (red and white) anually, from 14 ha, which would be a yield of app. 21 hl/ha (but a lot is sold off).
Modern? If you mean that the tannins are riper and sweeter, less astringent than in the 70ies/80ies … and if you think THIS is more modern …
We had the 06 in a vertical last summer. Here’s my brief notes from a FB post. I remember that we were surprised at how much we liked how the 06 was developing.
“Chave has soul. That’s my takeaway from last night’s vertical. Nothing new there, but reaffirmation is a good thing. Highlights were 82, 83, 88, 89, and 90. All literally off the charts. The 06 was the surprise of the night. Still primary as expected, but really showed well for its youth. The 01 was not a good bottle. The 86 was a fine bottle, but the vintage didn’t move any of us. On the far left is 07 Roulot Luchets, 02 Fevre Clos, and 05 Jadot Montrachet. All very good. The Jadot was the first clean bottle after five (that’s right, five) premoxed bottles in a row. First non pox’d bottle I’ve ever had. 1969 DP Oeno was terrific as always, 90 d’Yquem was great, and the 1950 d’Yquem was sublime. Oh, and somehow that pesky bottle of 89 Chapelle snuck in. Apparently he didn’t want Chave to have all the fun.”
I’m with you but the last time I participated in a Chave vertical I was impressed with the classic cut of the 01. The 2001 is somehow a positive aberration. Too expensive but worth noting!
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