2022 Ermitage Le Pavillon

Tasting through the extensive Chapoutier range with head winemaker Clément Bärtschi is always a highlight of my visits to the Northern Rhône. Their single-vineyard offerings from Hermitage, both white and red, rank among the appellation's finest, with the 2022 Ermitage Blanc L'Ermite and 2022 Ermitage Blanc Le Méal knocking it out of the park. While the Hermitage reds remain varietal Syrahs, Bärtschi revealed that they began experimenting with co-fermenting white varieties back in 2019. “We are still in the experimental phase, and the results vary quite significantly from one vintage to another in terms of maturity and concentration, which is why we are refining our approach year after year,” Bärtschi explained. Standout wines from other appellations include the 2022 and 2023 Condrieu Côteau de Chéry, as well as the 2022 Saint-Joseph Blanc Les Granits. There were also a few underperformers, such as the 2022 Saint-Joseph Granilites and the 2022 Côte-Rôtie Les Bécasses. Reflecting on recent vintages—2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023—Chapoutier remains in the champions league for both Hermitage and Condrieu, maintains rock-solid quality in Saint-Joseph, Cornas and Saint-Péray, and shows room for improvement in Côte-Rôtie and Crozes-Hermitage.

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.