2003 L'Hermitage

"Two thousand four is a very, very good year for white Hermitage but only the most serious producers are going to be able to make great reds," said Jean-Louis Chave.When I expressed surprise at this statement, he explained:"After 2003, a year when the vines suffered tremendously, they were too tired to immediately bounce back to full vigor in 2004."In 2003, the Chaves made what Jean-Louis called "the type of white wine that you make once in your lifetime" and he still seems to be in shock over the style of the red wine produced in that vintage, which he says has no precedent at this address.

Gerard Chave picked a tiny crop (25 hectoliters per hectare) of superripe fruit at the beginning of September, later than most of his colleagues in Hermitage. "An elevated pH is not a problem if there's the glycerine to compensate for it," Chave told me in November. And there is no arguing with the extraordinary richness of Chave's red and white wines in 2003. As always, I tasted the young wines in their various components. A sample of wine from the lieu-dit Bessards was the best single barrel of young Hermitage I've tasted in recent memory. As to the 2003 blanc, Chave compares it to earlier vintages like 1961 and 1952, but he admits that the new year is really without precedent. It's hard to imagine another Hermitage producer offering 2003s with this magical combination of sweetness and verve. The wines are legends in the making.