Scents of almond, acacia flower, daffodil, celery, spices, and bee's wax. Fruit of quince, tangerine, asian pear, and peach. A little of orange liqueur-like intensity in midpalate. Slight hotness. Saline minerality. Velvety creamy textures. Pithy bitterness pleasantly lingers.
Medium body. Medium acidity. Exquisitely rich texture.
The fruit is slightly on the ripe side, but it had that ethereal quality.
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Ripe, orange-ey color and honeyed to start, tho decent acid and well balanced. Started out a bit overripe and thin, then firmed up. Really interesting and enjoyable.
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Deep golden color. I love Chapoutier’s Le Meal but I feel that this is aging quite rapidly and needs to be consumed as soon as possible. Tasted twice recently and it has lost most of its acidity.
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Just looking at the reviews this wine has gotten shows how high quality it is. Without a doubt, it is monumental. Deep gold in color and visibly viscous upon swirling the glass. The nose is waxy, chalky, earthy, and honeyed. The wine fills the mouth with a rich, creamy, almost chewy texture with a finish that lasts and lasts. The flavors are so complex, they actually remind me a bit of a Gravner amphora-aged orange wine; the flavors are different but there is a common complexity, length of finish, uniqueness that is difficult to describe.
I wish I could have had this wine 5 years ago. The cork was perfectly intact, and the wine was in great shape, but it definitely tasted advanced. Not in a bad way, as I typically enjoy the nutty, toasty, waxy flavors that come with age, but I think I would have preferred it just a touch more youthful. My non-wine enthusiast dining partner didn't like it; she said it was "like drinking liquor". While I don't necessarily agree with that assessment, I can see why she said it- the fruit was entirely gone. A wine of such high quality has many beautiful expressions over its lifetime, but my favorite is the middle ground, when the fruits of youth are balanced by some of the tertiary flavors that come with age, this was just a bit more towards the advanced side than I prefer. Overall, though, beautiful wine.
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92-93pts. Let me start stating that this is a polarizing wine - either you like it, or you hate it. I fell in the first category, but my wife (and it was her birthday) was having none of it. It is a whale of a wine - big-bodied for a white, with almost liquor-like in its aromas. Complete notes on IG at brl_winelover.
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BUD IS 75! (Abbot Street, Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand): Without question, an extraordinary wine. Very modern in style, with plenty of (stunning) new oak that frames the gorgeous fruit. White floral notes add a sense of beauty to the honied, stone fruit and mineral nature of the fruit. The balance is perfect, the finish is perfect, the mid palate intensity is all about nuance, balance, and is (not surprisingly) perfect. This wine as the proportions (and mouth feel) of great white burgundy, but with a flavour profile that is all about Marsanne. This may not come from he finest vintage for the Northern Rhone, but the resultant wine is extraordinary, for my tastes. Also, a brilliant food match with a Salmon en papillote.
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Color is beautiful. Light brandy or Tokaji. Definite apricot, dried yellow, tropical, and stone fruit flavors. Minerality. Incredible length. Some tartness. Full bodied with an unbelievable viscosity. Peach. with a hint of almonds. Subtle honeysuckle. Do not serve too cold. Really opens up. Getting a bit of honey now. Just wow. Good by itself and great with food. Good acidity.
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The charismatic dowager gets sharper, more deep and precise with age. She is ascerbic and dismissive of disagreement. She dominates the conversation, even when it features deeply flavored Mediterranean stew... but her edges, ever bold, have soured and dried a bit. Still tropical; more dried and angular are her fruit flavors. She does not want to be too cold or imbibed too fast, and her flavors are darker and a bit more insidious. We still love her intensity, but are no longer sure we can bear sitting next to her at every single dinner party...
Dark pineapple, dried jackfruit. Overall an impression of dried yellow tropical fruits. Quite viscous. Acid can't quite stand up to the fruit notes. A tad hot for my palate, not harsh, but too hot. The finish is marred by the alcohol
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Exclusive dinner with eight friends and 22 special wines.: In the bouquet beautifully ripe and soft yellow and white tropical fruits as well as minerals. On the palate lush and soft yellow fruits as well. Beautiful and fresh acidity. Full bodied and luxurious wine with an enormous length.
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It is all about the finish this time- intense stone notes that confuse and tease the mind-taste bud connection.. Mind-blowing depth and length (probably a minute) for a white wine. Needs major decant, I should have waited another 5 years to drink but was craving a white hermitage. Subdued nose of white flowers, melon and citrus. Palate has tart fruit, stone, a touch of honey and some heat. So unique, cerebral and very special.
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Intense gold. Ripe yellow fruits, half dry yellow fruits, almond paste, a hint of burnt sugar, flowers and mineral. A big scale wine, intense ripe yellow fruit driven palate impression, good acidity and nice length. A hint of alcohol both in the nose and the palate which is not bothersome. It evolved nicely with air. A very good but I don’t see myself rating this 100.
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A private tasting and dinner (Restaurant Bolenius, Amsterdam, NL): Rich but fresh, much better balance and energy than the big 2000, honeysuckle, salted butter and minerals, a very concentrated wine with the elegance of a cooler vintage; excellent length and depth. Continues to improve throughout the evening. Great potential.
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KYD #1.2: Dense nose filled with overripe exotic fruits like honey dew melon, papaya and peach. Highly intense and has a heavy feel to it and also shows some concentrated honey. Improves a lot with air and shows an improved minerality and gets more perfumed. A lot of honey sweetness dominates the powerful palate but very little acidity which unfortunately makes the wine seem a bit "flat" in its overall mouth-feel. There is also a lot of exotic fruit coming through with a touch of white pepper, vanilla and oak. I really improves a lot with air and gets a better balance but it is really a special wine.
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Enjoyed over three hours during dinner at Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas. Served chilled slightly below cellar temperature. Popped and poured into large wine glass provided by the restaurant. Color was between bright gold straw and light honey color. Expressive nose of honeycomb, almond paste, and acacia flowers. Palate was concentrated and intense showing layers of honey, Marcona almonds, tropical fruits, and mineral notes. Full bodied with an unbelievable viscosity. Coated the palate and kept changing flavor layers in the mouth. Long and beautiful finish where the tropical fruits, minerals and flowery notes dominated.
If there is a 100 point white wine, this is it. Perhaps the finest white hermitage (or white wine of any kind) that I’ve ever had. Drink now or hold indefinitely.
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Wow this was a beautiful wine. Having drank the '03 L'Ermite Blanc a year earlier and being blown away, I was curious as to how the '04 Le Meal would stand up to that wine. I'd say the '04 Le Meal held its own, but didn't quite have the concentration/layering of the '03 L'Ermite. The Le Meal had wonderful concentration with a deep yellow color. It had amazing flavors of crushed stones, lemons, pineapples, honey, citrus and beeswax. This wine was one of the best whites I've ever had. Great now, but this wine should last another 15 years. Yum yum.
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Fully loaded with bisquits, wet stone, grapefruit, apple, pits, ginger and spices - packaged in a pure wrapping that's elegant but Herculean in force. Hard not to give this 100 points, but it is woefully youthful and promises to improve, improve and improve with time. If, and that's a big if, I can keep from opening my remaining bottles for ten years this could be one of the wines of the century.
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Dried skins, peach pits, minerals and wet stone. Quite possibly the longest finish of any wine I've ever tasted - ten...fifteen minutes? Not just a strong memory, but a wine that still dominated the tounge after fifteen minutes.
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3/8/2024 - Ruminator Likes this wine: 93 Points
Deep Golden color.
Scents of almond, acacia flower, daffodil, celery, spices, and bee's wax. Fruit of quince, tangerine, asian pear, and peach. A little of orange liqueur-like intensity in midpalate. Slight hotness. Saline minerality. Velvety creamy textures. Pithy bitterness pleasantly lingers.
Medium body. Medium acidity. Exquisitely rich texture.
The fruit is slightly on the ripe side, but it had that ethereal quality.
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11/19/2023 - The Andrews Likes this wine: 92 Points
Ripe, orange-ey color and honeyed to start, tho decent acid and well balanced. Started out a bit overripe and thin, then firmed up. Really interesting and enjoyable.
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2/18/2023 - danielbleier wrote: flawed
sherry
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3/31/2022 - WaiCellar wrote: 85 Points
Deep golden color. I love Chapoutier’s Le Meal but I feel that this is aging quite rapidly and needs to be consumed as soon as possible. Tasted twice recently and it has lost most of its acidity.
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2/1/2021 - NoahCap wrote:
Just looking at the reviews this wine has gotten shows how high quality it is. Without a doubt, it is monumental. Deep gold in color and visibly viscous upon swirling the glass. The nose is waxy, chalky, earthy, and honeyed. The wine fills the mouth with a rich, creamy, almost chewy texture with a finish that lasts and lasts. The flavors are so complex, they actually remind me a bit of a Gravner amphora-aged orange wine; the flavors are different but there is a common complexity, length of finish, uniqueness that is difficult to describe.
I wish I could have had this wine 5 years ago. The cork was perfectly intact, and the wine was in great shape, but it definitely tasted advanced. Not in a bad way, as I typically enjoy the nutty, toasty, waxy flavors that come with age, but I think I would have preferred it just a touch more youthful. My non-wine enthusiast dining partner didn't like it; she said it was "like drinking liquor". While I don't necessarily agree with that assessment, I can see why she said it- the fruit was entirely gone. A wine of such high quality has many beautiful expressions over its lifetime, but my favorite is the middle ground, when the fruits of youth are balanced by some of the tertiary flavors that come with age, this was just a bit more towards the advanced side than I prefer. Overall, though, beautiful wine.
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1/30/2021 - br_winelover Likes this wine: 93 Points
92-93pts. Let me start stating that this is a polarizing wine - either you like it, or you hate it. I fell in the first category, but my wife (and it was her birthday) was having none of it. It is a whale of a wine - big-bodied for a white, with almost liquor-like in its aromas. Complete notes on IG at brl_winelover.
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6/20/2020 - jmoon Likes this wine: 97 Points
Gorgeous luscious unctuous waxy golden joy.
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8/24/2019 - ledocq wrote: flawed
Suspect storage issues.
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6/24/2018 - Marc wrote: 100 Points
BUD IS 75! (Abbot Street, Ngaio, Wellington, New Zealand): Without question, an extraordinary wine. Very modern in style, with plenty of (stunning) new oak that frames the gorgeous fruit. White floral notes add a sense of beauty to the honied, stone fruit and mineral nature of the fruit. The balance is perfect, the finish is perfect, the mid palate intensity is all about nuance, balance, and is (not surprisingly) perfect. This wine as the proportions (and mouth feel) of great white burgundy, but with a flavour profile that is all about Marsanne. This may not come from he finest vintage for the Northern Rhone, but the resultant wine is extraordinary, for my tastes. Also, a brilliant food match with a Salmon en papillote.
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11/23/2017 - happytom Likes this wine: 97 Points
Color is beautiful. Light brandy or Tokaji. Definite apricot, dried yellow, tropical, and stone fruit flavors. Minerality. Incredible length. Some tartness. Full bodied with an unbelievable viscosity. Peach. with a hint of almonds. Subtle honeysuckle. Do not serve too cold. Really opens up. Getting a bit of honey now. Just wow. Good by itself and great with food. Good acidity.
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9/18/2017 - pablopilot Likes this wine: 94 Points
The charismatic dowager gets sharper, more deep and precise with age. She is ascerbic and dismissive of disagreement. She dominates the conversation, even when it features deeply flavored Mediterranean stew... but her edges, ever bold, have soured and dried a bit. Still tropical; more dried and angular are her fruit flavors. She does not want to be too cold or imbibed too fast, and her flavors are darker and a bit more insidious. We still love her intensity, but are no longer sure we can bear sitting next to her at every single dinner party...
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3/5/2016 - tinybubbles wrote:
Dark pineapple, dried jackfruit. Overall an impression of dried yellow tropical fruits. Quite viscous. Acid can't quite stand up to the fruit notes. A tad hot for my palate, not harsh, but too hot. The finish is marred by the alcohol
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12/12/2015 - Zweder wrote: 96 Points
Exclusive dinner with eight friends and 22 special wines.: In the bouquet beautifully ripe and soft yellow and white tropical fruits as well as minerals. On the palate lush and soft yellow fruits as well. Beautiful and fresh acidity. Full bodied and luxurious wine with an enormous length.
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2/8/2014 - ledwards wrote: 95 Points
It is all about the finish this time- intense stone notes that confuse and tease the mind-taste bud connection.. Mind-blowing depth and length (probably a minute) for a white wine. Needs major decant, I should have waited another 5 years to drink but was craving a white hermitage. Subdued nose of white flowers, melon and citrus. Palate has tart fruit, stone, a touch of honey and some heat. So unique, cerebral and very special.
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1/16/2014 - dcwino wrote: 94 Points
Intense gold. Ripe yellow fruits, half dry yellow fruits, almond paste, a hint of burnt sugar, flowers and mineral. A big scale wine, intense ripe yellow fruit driven palate impression, good acidity and nice length. A hint of alcohol both in the nose and the palate which is not bothersome. It evolved nicely with air. A very good but I don’t see myself rating this 100.
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7/6/2013 - Xavier Auerbach wrote: 94 Points
A private tasting and dinner (Restaurant Bolenius, Amsterdam, NL): Rich but fresh, much better balance and energy than the big 2000, honeysuckle, salted butter and minerals, a very concentrated wine with the elegance of a cooler vintage; excellent length and depth. Continues to improve throughout the evening. Great potential.
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2/28/2013 - danielbleier Likes this wine: 93 Points
Flavors of honey, flower, and a touch of almond...very rich and thick...probably served a little colder than would have been ideal.
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7/15/2012 - cardsandwine Likes this wine:
My third bottle of this incredible wine over the past 3 years. Concentrated and intense, while lush on the palate and sublime on the finish.
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6/12/2011 - canan wrote: 95 Points
KYD #1.2: Dense nose filled with overripe exotic fruits like honey dew melon, papaya and peach. Highly intense and has a heavy feel to it and also shows some concentrated honey. Improves a lot with air and shows an improved minerality and gets more perfumed.
A lot of honey sweetness dominates the powerful palate but very little acidity which unfortunately makes the wine seem a bit "flat" in its overall mouth-feel.
There is also a lot of exotic fruit coming through with a touch of white pepper, vanilla and oak.
I really improves a lot with air and gets a better balance but it is really a special wine.
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6/2/2011 - huntinpagan wrote: 100 Points
Enjoyed over three hours during dinner at Joel Robuchon in Las Vegas. Served chilled slightly below cellar temperature. Popped and poured into large wine glass provided by the restaurant. Color was between bright gold straw and light honey color. Expressive nose of honeycomb, almond paste, and acacia flowers. Palate was concentrated and intense showing layers of honey, Marcona almonds, tropical fruits, and mineral notes. Full bodied with an unbelievable viscosity. Coated the palate and kept changing flavor layers in the mouth. Long and beautiful finish where the tropical fruits, minerals and flowery notes dominated.
If there is a 100 point white wine, this is it. Perhaps the finest white hermitage (or white wine of any kind) that I’ve ever had. Drink now or hold indefinitely.
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4/18/2011 - twatson Likes this wine: 98 Points
The last sip was the best....
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3/24/2011 - buckeye76 wrote: 97 Points
HONEYSUCKLE, APRICOTS, AND CITRUS IN THE NOSE AND FLAVOR. NICE COMPLEXITY AND A LONG FINISH. GREAT FOOD COMPLEMENT
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1/11/2010 - rthun wrote: 99 Points
Wow this was a beautiful wine. Having drank the '03 L'Ermite Blanc a year earlier and being blown away, I was curious as to how the '04 Le Meal would stand up to that wine. I'd say the '04 Le Meal held its own, but didn't quite have the concentration/layering of the '03 L'Ermite. The Le Meal had wonderful concentration with a deep yellow color. It had amazing flavors of crushed stones, lemons, pineapples, honey, citrus and beeswax. This wine was one of the best whites I've ever had. Great now, but this wine should last another 15 years. Yum yum.
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4/21/2009 - idrinkvino wrote: 95 Points
Drank this too suddenly. It began to open after 30 minutes or so in the glass. Strongly recommend breathing.
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12/21/2008 - idrinkvino wrote: 99 Points
Fully loaded with bisquits, wet stone, grapefruit, apple, pits, ginger and spices - packaged in a pure wrapping that's elegant but Herculean in force. Hard not to give this 100 points, but it is woefully youthful and promises to improve, improve and improve with time. If, and that's a big if, I can keep from opening my remaining bottles for ten years this could be one of the wines of the century.
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1/28/2008 - idrinkvino wrote: 98 Points
Dried skins, peach pits, minerals and wet stone. Quite possibly the longest finish of any wine I've ever tasted - ten...fifteen minutes? Not just a strong memory, but a wine that still dominated the tounge after fifteen minutes.
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4/5/2007 - idrinkvino wrote: 99 Points
Exceptional
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