1999 Hermitage Gambert de Loche

Uncovering good new sources for Hermitage is as tough as finding exciting new Cote-Rotie - even tougher, in fact, as the Hermitage hillside serves as its own natural boundary and cannot be expanded. The Cave de Tain L'Hermitage has actually been around since 1933, but, according to export manager Murielle Chardin-Frouin, since the late 1980s this cooperative has increasingly paid its member growers by the hectare rather than by volume of grapes, and thus is in a position to improve markedly the work in the vines. With the arrival of enologist Alain Bourgeois several years ago, quality has been raised to another level. The Cave de Tain, which actually owns 22 hectares of vines in Hermitage and controls another 8 through its members, is the largest producer of Hermitage. The fruit is 100% destemmed; part of the basic Hermitage, and all of the house's special cuvee Gambert de Loche, now go through malolactic fermentation in barrel. The Cave de Tain uses 400-liter barrels for its bottlings from Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph but all barriques for Hermitage. I was impressed by the level of sweetness and concentration I found in this producer's '99s and '00s, especially in light of their reasonable prices. These wines might be even better for a bit less handling: the lesser wines are filtered twice and usually fined as well, the Gambert de Loche fined and lightly filtered.