1999 L'Hermitage

It was an outstanding evening of fine food, fine wine and even finer friendship. Medlar delivered yet again, not just in terms of the impressive standard of cooking that complemented these bottles with aplomb, but particularly the sommelier team that handled all these bottles with care, skill and all-important smiles.

This wine was tasted over dinner at Ristorante Morini, NY in May, 2014.

Although the Chaves are justly proud of the rich, stylish red wine they have in the works in 2000, Jean-Louis Chave told me that this vintage is almost more of a white wine year than '99. "In '99, white Hermitage is fat and powerful, but without quite the same balance as in 2000," he explained. "In contrast, 2000 has stuffing and fat but also great suavity, which will allow the wine to express itself sooner." High yields were not a factor at this address in 2000: the Chaves made one-third less wine than in the previous year, according to Jean-Louis. Nineteen ninety-nine yielded wonderful wines here, despite the fact that the domain did not make a separate Cuvee Cathelin bottling. Jean-Louis was moderately concerned that some observers would think this decision meant that the Chaves considered '99 to be less than outstanding. On the contrary: the issue in '99 was that virtually all of the family's lieux-dit produced very rich, rather powerful wine, with the vintage character partly overshadowing site specificity. Under the circumstances, Jean-Louis explained, the Chaves would not have been able to make a special bottling that was markedly different in style from the rest. In '98, in contrast, it was possible to make a Cathelin with significantly more refinement than the regular cuvee

Since my last visit, the Chaves have installed a state-of-the-art system enabling them to control the temperature of the various rooms of their cellar independently. Other than that, the gloomy cellars beneath their house in Mauves have changed little in the last century or so. The wines, not surprisingly, are as spectacularly fine as ever. As characterized by Jean-Louis Chave, 1999 featured a growing season without climatic shocks, and the steady maturation of the grapes has yielded a wine of great balance. "In 1998, the challenge was to find the glycerol and gras to buffer the tannins, while in '99, because the component wines were much rounder, it was easier to make an assemblage " Jean-Louis noted. Although the quality of the '99 vintage surely merits a special Cuvee Cathelin bottling, the Chaves had not yet made a final determination in November. Given the nature of the vintage, it possible that the most structured, firmly tannic components of '99 juice will be needed to give the overall blend the backbone and grip for long-term ageability. Incidentally, the Chaves will release small quantities of their first Vin de Paille since 1990 after they bottle the '96 sometime in the coming months. Coincidentally, the extraordinary '96, with its honeyed yet utterly vibrant aromas and flavors of orange zest and marmalade, resembles the '90 in style, while the still-fermenting (!) '97, with its gamier, more liqueur-like character and uncanny thickness and sucrosity, more closely resembles the incredible '89.