2011 St Joseph

Inky ruby. Spicy blackberry and blueberry scents are complicated by smoky minerals and candied violet. Elegant, focused and penetrating, offering floral black and blue fruit flavors and a suave, silky texture. The long, expansive finish repeats the floral and spice notes and features velvety, slow-building tannins. This wine can stand up to many wines from Hermitage from this vintage and is a fantastic value, relatively speaking.

Tasted out of bottle and a smoking St.-Joseph that savvy readers need to seek out, the 2011 St.-Joseph (which was just bottled prior to this tasting) offers gorgeous richness and depth, especially in the vintage. Black currants, charcoal, mineral, bouquet garni and ample background meatiness all emerge from the glass, and this medium to full-bodied beauty has brilliant purity of fruit, a great texture and fine tannin that should allow it to evolve gracefully. It’s a fantastic value that should not be missed! One of the highlight visits during my time spent working in the Northern Rhone, Jean-Louis Chave (who is often called “The Pope of Hermitage” by others) makes some of the most profound wines in the world today. As he says, “We don’t make Chave, we make Hermitage,” and there are few things more educational, when trying to understand this storied appellation, than to taste through each of Jean-Louis’s different Hermitage plots from barrel. The striking minerality and austere cut of the l’Ermite parcel is in stark contrast to the voluptuousness and texture that’s found in the Le Meal (which is just down the slope); and both are completely different from the silky, polished and perfumed Peleat lieu-dit. Despite the notoriety here, Jean-Louis remains one of the most humble and straight talking winemakers out there, and his wines deserve a place in any wine lover’s cellar. One of the highlight visits during my time spent working in the Northern Rhone, Jean-Louis Chave (who is often called “The Pope of Hermitage” by others) makes some of the most profound wines in the world today. As he says, “We don’t make Chave, we make Hermitage,” and there are few things more educational, when trying to understand this storied appellation, than to taste through each of Jean-Louis’s different Hermitage plots from barrel. The striking minerality and austere cut of the l’Ermite parcel is in stark contrast to the voluptuousness and texture that’s found in the Le Meal (which is just down the slope); and both are completely different from the silky, polished and perfumed Peleat lieu-dit. Despite the notoriety here, Jean-Louis remains one of the most humble and straight talking winemakers out there, and his wines deserve a place in any wine lover’s cellar. Importer: Langdon-Shiverick, Los Angeles, CA; tel. (213) 483-5900

Tasted in components: #1, from Les Oliviers, in Tournon: Fresh blue fruits and violet on the nose. Lush and open-knit, with sappy boysenberry and cassis flavors and a hint of licorice on the back end. #2, from Bachasson, in Lemps: A pure granite, south-facing site in Lemps; high-pitched, mineral-accented aromas and flavors of black raspberry and bitter cherry. Precise and subtly sweet, with strong finishing lift and cut. #3, from Clos Forentin, in Mauves: Made from vines that Chave says are between 80 and 100 years of age; emphatic blueberry and violet scents and flavors, with a bright mineral overlay. Sappy and penetrating, with excellent focus and finishing sweetness. #4, from Dardouille, in Tournon: Deeply pitched dark fruit preserves and licorice on the nose. Fleshy and broad, with very good depth and chewy blackcurrant and bitter cherry flavors. Gripping tannins shape a long, sappy finish. The final wine should be a bright, mineral-driven example of Saint-Joseph, with lots of upfront appeal but the balance to age.