Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Selection Hermitage Blanche 2019

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

About JL Chave

The following video is a fascinating insight into a year with JL Chave, it is one of the best pieces of work I’ve seen in an attempt to follow a winery through a season. It’s in French, even if you don’t speak French it’s a great watch!

The commitment of Chave to acquire prime but forgotten land and re-establish vineyards is an exciting development for the region. “Before phylloxera these were special sites,” Chave explains as he surveys steep terraces above and below a narrow road cut through a newly planted south-facing hillside. “The difficulty today is finding the people willing to do the work.”

The current generations in charge, father Gérard and son Jean-Louis, use their knowledge, experience and spread of lieux-dits to craft wines that combine all the power, longevity, nuance and refinement that the Hermitage hill is capable of.

The expertise that Gérard and Jean-Louis draw upon is not only their own, but, also the accumulated wisdom of their ancestors, transmitted down through the generations since Chaves began making Hermitage in 1481, continuing a five-century dynasty of extraordinarily high quality and pure expression of great terroir that is unmatched.

List to Levi Dalton’s Podcast with JL Chave

The near vertical vineyards of Hermitage

As Andrew Jefford writes in The New France, “The Chave line … could make a fair claim to be France’s winemaking royal family: in no other of France’s great terroirs is the largest individual landholder so deeply rooted in time and place, so supremely competent, and so modest a custodian of the insights and craftsmanship of the past.”

The key to the perfect balance of Chave Hermitage, whether rouge or blanc, is in Gérard and Jean-Louis’ remarkable blending skill, a process that begins anew with each vintage. Like Jamet and Clape, the Chaves assemble their vintage cuvées from their expertly farmed array of sites, each with its own character, to create singular blends of great nuance, harmony, depth and ageing potential.

Traditionalists to the core, Chave has never released a cru Hermitage despite how impressive some of the individual cuvées are—the blend is all. As Gerard told Stephen Tanzer in 2000, “We create a wine that no early taster knows. Every year we start from zero in assembling the blend.”

While the components and their percentages are different every year, the one constant in the Hermitage rouge is the Syrah from Bessards which provides the cuvée’s backbone with the fruit from its steep, granite slope; as Gerard said to The Wines of the Northern Rhône author John Livingstone-Learmonth, “Bessards is our essential climat; you can’t make a Grand Hermitage without it.”

Likewise, the base for Chave’s heroic Hermitage blanc is the plot of century-old Marsanne vines in their Péléat monopole, which provides rich and intense fruit without heaviness. The usual final blend for the blanc is 80 to 85% Marsanne with 15 to 20% Roussanne.

While both colours are revered worldwide as the very essence of Hermitage, endlessly complex wines that surreally balance their richness and depth with elegance and finesse, it can come as a surprise to many that the blanc will live as long, if not longer than the rouge. In the 1980s, we tasted a Chave Blanc from the 1920s that was breathtaking.

In vintages where the Chaves feel that the surreal harmony of the rouge won’t be compromised, the heroic Cuvée Cathelin is bottled separately. It contains the same lieux-dits, made in the same way, but their percentages are different; the goal is a wine that has a bit more of all of the classique’s elements. Painfully rare, only 200 cases are produced in those vintages deemed appropriate.

In addition to their benchmark Hermitage wines, Chave has long made a beautiful, traditionally styled St. Joseph rouge from their vines in the historic centre of the appellation; this is a model St. Joseph with its round black raspberry, black olive, violet and woodsmoke aromatics, firm underlying structure and fine balance.

The Chave’s methods for all of their wines are thoroughly traditional—perfectionist farming, low yields, full ripeness, minimal new oak, minimal intervention and no filtering. There are no secrets, just unmatched attention to detail and instinctive feel for growing and winemaking. Centuries in the making, this approach has one goal: a pure rendering of noble northern Rhône terroir.

The 2020 Vintage at JL Chave

As with the 2020 L’Hermitage, I tasted this wine in its components, shortly before blending and bottling. This vintage is highly successful at Chave, and this wine, which would qualify as the gateway bottling made from estate fruit, looks to be outstanding, with juicy, spice-laced red and blue fruit character of noteworthy freshness, plus strong florality and mineral drive. I was also struck by the fineness of the tannins, which will likely make the final wine deceptively approachable on release. Don’t be fooled – this wine has a long and enviable track record for rewarding patience.

Josh Raynolds, Vinous

Where in the World is JL Chave?

JL Chave is in Hermitage in the northern part of the Côtes du Rhône. In addition to his famed Hermitage vineyards he has considerable holdings in Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph.

Explore the interactive map created by Fernando Beteta, MS

Hermitage AOP

L’Hermite: Syrah, Marsanne, Roussanne.  In 1984 Gerard Chave purchased the majority from Terrence Gray. Situated at the top of the Hermitage hill, around the chapel, in a place named the Ermite. The vines are 80 years old and are on granitic soils which are very poor. Some loess. La Chapelle: Within L’Hermite. Syrah. Majority Granite soil.
Chante Alouette: Marsanne. Loess soil with a fine layer of clay and limestone. Within the L’Hermite vineyard. Grapes go into Chapoutier’s wine of the same name.
L’Homme: Marsanne. Clay chalk, loose sandy soil.
La Croix: Marsanne, some Syrah and Roussanne. Dard et Ribo farms. Jaboulet owns.
La Pierelle: Marsanne and Syah. Louis Barroul makes two cuvées from each grape.
Le Méal: Syrah, Marsanne. Old fluvioglacial alluvial deposit soil with numerous shingles. Marc Sorrel’s “Le Greal” comes from a plot in the middle of the slope.
Les Beaumes: Syrah. Clay-sandstone and “poudingue” a local name for alluvial deposits. Chave has made a cuvée of Les Beaumes.
Les Bessards: Mostly Syrah. Small Marsanne plot worked by Delas. One of the largest vineyards, granite and gravels. Chapoutier’s Le Pavillon and Chave’s Hermitage Cuvée Cathelin, Jabloulet’s La Chapelle
Les Doignières: Marsanne. Roussane and .3 ha of syrah. Les Fayolles make two wines and sell a majority to Guigal. Colombier, Marinelles, Ferraton and Michelas Saint Jemms also source here.
Doignières et Torras: Marsanne. Paul Jaboulet has 1.3 ha.
Les Grandes Vignes or Gros des Vignes: Syrah. Granite soil. Desmeure, Jaboulet and Delas work plots here.
Les Greffieux: Syrah. Glacial alluvial deposit terrace composed of shingles and clay.
Les Murets: Marsanne. Soils consist of granitic arena and alluvial deposits of same nature
Les Rocoules: Marsanne. Some Roussanne. Mix of clay-chalk with glacier stone. Laurent Habrard, Marc Sorrel and Jaboulet. Big component in Chave’s white Hermitage.
Les Vercandières: Walled plot owned by Chave. Syrah and Marsanne.
Maison Blanche: Marsanne, Roussanne. Clay-limestone. Jaboulet, Desmeurs and Florent Viale.
Plantieres: Syrah. A small plot just below Greffieux
Péléat: Marsanne, Syrah Monoplole owned by Chave, big part of the Hermitage blanc.”poudingue” soils, clay, silex.
Torras et les Garennes: Marsanne. Compact old glacier moraines, alluvial stones. Use to be called “Les Signaux” Jaboulet main holder.
Varogne: Syrah. Dard et Riob and Bied have holdings here.