2013 Ermitage L'Ermite

I sat down for an entire morning head winemaker Clément Bärtschi to taste through Chapoutier’s extensive portfolio. “Two thousand twenty-one started with a frost episode in early April and was followed by a very rainy year. One might have to go back to 2008 or earlier to find a vintage as challenging for winemakers,” Bärtschi recalled. “We had to work tirelessly in the vineyards until the end of the harvest. Due to our organic and biodynamic farming, we were trimming grass, mowing and adjusting leaves up until the last moment before harvest. Overall, we are dealing with a vintage profile that is less structured and a bit more diluted.” Facing the trio of the warm and sunny 2018, 2019 and 2020 vintages, Bärtschi admitted that he became a little bit accustomed to those vintage types, where the primary focus was early harvesting and gentle extraction. Tasting through the 2021s offered a stark contrast between the different appellations and terroirs, especially for the reds. Some wines, particularly from Crozes-Hermitage and Saint-Joseph, miss the mark that Bärtschi and Chapoutier set over the past years. On the other hand, reds like the 2021 Ermitage Le Pavillon and L'Ermite stand tall. While that same quality gap from top to bottom exists for the whites, the overall quality far exceeds that of the reds. The three Ermitage Blanc top cuvées, Le Méal, L’Ermite and De L’Orée, are thrilling, also because Bärtschi skillfully uses reductive winemaking techniques to make the wines more complex. Moving on to 2022, Bärtschi remembered the return from his summer vacation, surprised that “the potential alcohol levels in the grapes hadn't soared,” something he observed in 2019, for example. “This allowed us to be patient and wait for more advanced phenolic ripeness. In 2003, when alcohol and sugar levels skyrocketed, we were forced to harvest without achieving full phenolic ripeness. In 2022, slightly lower alcohol levels supported balance, even though the acidity levels were not very high. What, however, prevents 2022 from being an extraordinary vintage - like 2010 or 2020 - is that despite being able to wait for phenolic ripeness, the stress the vines experienced during the summer meant that the tannins never reached perfect maturity. Consequently, when working with good yet not perfect phenolic ripeness, one must exercise restraint in order to maintain balance. Still, 2022 was almost a miracle considering the challenges the vines faced with heat and drought. To me, it's more and more evident that the vines increasingly adapt to heat and drought conditions,” Bärtschi concluded. Tasting the 2022s reveals solid quality across the board and much more consistency than the 2021s. While the red Ermitage cuvées show promising potential, Bärtschi really nailed the whites. The 2022 Ermitage Blanc Le Méal is so delicious that it’s in the race for the Northern Rhône’s white wine of the vintage.

Chapoutier's winemaker Clément Bärtschi, who guided the usual marathon tasting for me here, said that one thing he'd like to see change is that “people drink these wines, especially the top white ones, so young." The problem, as he sees it, is that “when you open them before they've had at least a year in the bottle, and even more for the reds, what you see is the variety, not the place." So a newly released Condrieu "tastes like Viognier more than where it's from, which is what people are paying for, hopefully." The converse is true as well, he continued, "because old wines can start to merge together stylistically. The challenge is how to catch the wine at the ideal point of freshness and maturity."

My annual tasting marathon at Chapoutier (more than 100 wines from the north and south!) was conducted by assistant winemaker Clément Bärtschi, who is especially enthused by the increasing quality of wines, both red and white, that have been emerging from Saint-Joseph in recent years. "You get everything that you want in the best parts of the appellation," which to him is the area surrounding Saint-Jean de Muzols and Mauve: "granite soils, steep south-facing slopes and old Serine vines." Like a number of his colleagues Clement views Saint-Joseph as "a little Hermitage, and the wines are more approachable, which gives them a larger audience. The prices help, too." The Chapoutier team is pleased by the healthy yields of 2013 and 2012 and, as was repeated to me across the region, they think that having plenty of wine to sell will help to mitigate the pain of the short crop of 2014.