Howard, we also had the 2010 not so long ago. Primary of course but already a magnificent wine. White Hermitage by Chave is one of these wines which you know immediately is something very special. Tasting the 2011 it with Gérard Chave last year in the cellar was ion we of those special moments. And we still had the reds to taste. It’s clear the house takes the white and red equally seriously, and it’s reflected by the fact that they sell it for the same price.
Gerhard,
What is the cellar door price?
Question for those familiar with this wine - does it go through a prolonged ‘dumb phase’ after a few years as other Roussanne and Marsanne wines do? Curious . . .
PM !
Usually YES, depending on the vintage …
That has been my experience. Admittedly, “N” is small. I have always tried to avoid the in-between stage, never bought tons, and have not bought a bottle since the mid-1990s.
Cliff,
Looks like I’m not enough of a geek here to get your “N” reference. What is “N”?
Thanks.
Ramon
The greatest Chave Blanc deal ever:
Until a few years ago, Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, FL had both the 1982 and 1983 on their list for $49 a bottle, nicely aged for you under ideal storage conditions. Indulging in those babies pretty much paid for the plane fare.
MrBigJ
larry - in my experience the “dumb phase” for chave blanc is less pronounced than many other white rhones (Beaucastel, Chapoutier for example), so it’s at least enjoyable for most of its life. That said, the general advice of “drink young or leave ten years” does apply.
N refers to sample size (i.e., the number of examples he has experienced).
Yes, definitely. It used to be you could get it cheap as people unloaded wines they thought were over the hill when they just needed another 5-10 years to come out of their shell.
Thanks. As somebody who uses plenty of statistics (in my work), I thought about it as referring to sample size. Perhaps, the capitalized “N” threw me off ( I’m used to using small letter “n”).
Yes. Sorry about the stray punctuation.
Anyone had the 2002 lately? Saw it on a restaurant wine list for $125 and thinking about giving it a go…
Latest CT note is from a friend I drink with regularly. I wouldn’t hesitate.
will be a nice wine, consider decanting it. We opened a 1996 last year and the last glass was the best and I wished we had decanted the bottle because I think the best was yet to come
Low risk off a restaurant list, so go for it. Very poor / challenging year (probably more so for the reds) but should be very interesting. And if it’s completely poked you can send it back 
We split a Chave Rouge 2002 last year and it was excellent.
Glad it was, Craig, and that won’t be the first or last time Chave outperformed the vintage. But 02s are probably second weakest behind 03s in over 20 years.