Rhône or Nôwhere 2.0 (Malcolm, NE): The 1994 was initially a bit shy on the nose but after many hours in the decanter, it showed such amazing character. In fact, it shared some characteristics with a lightly peated single malt scotch, with light smoke, marmalade, honey, golden raspberry and wet stone. More of its character was unlocked with food. In this case, monkfish, sweet potato, leek, and winter truffle. Drink now through 2034+. Merci Matt!
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Tonight was a rare night of many firsts- this perhaps the greatest of all.
fine light gold color, textured nose with walnuts and game- substantial in scale but somewhat subdued, and then on the palate a fantastic immediate impact of smoky citrus fruit, white flower notes, racy broad fruit across the middle with lime and earth undertones on the long sleek finish, in the details a wine of excesses- but with a firm long acid spine perfectly balancing the powerful ripe fruit, a wine with which I have very little experience- and none with so much age- but I do hope that will change in time, quite a beauty with so many rich niches to explore- but with all of its elements coming together flawlessly to render a study in opulent sophistication.
****+, ready to go but time in hand.
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I have to admit I have no idea where this bottle has come from. As I'm a member of TWS in the UK I assume it's from a mixed case bought years ago and I've simply missed drinking this. I've never had a white wine that wasn't a sticky this old before. The fill was full - so I've stored it well. The cork came out with no sign of deterioration. And as soon as the bottle was opened I knew everything was OK! Beautiful colour - lemony-gold Creamy honey & lanolin on the nose, with a hint of spice. Rich, viscous, luscious palate finishing on a nutty note. Just enough acidity not to be cloying. I'm not getting any fruit on the nose but a touch of lemon (preserved rather than fresh) on the palate. Will see how it develops over the evening. After an hour some candied/ dried tropical fruit on the nose.
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a bit tight out of the bottle but with some air it really opens up with rich stone fruit body and creamy texture. The acidity in the wine is just enough to keep it from getting unbalanced and over the top. A very well put together wine from northern rhone. The wine is at a great place now but definitely benefits from at least an hour of air.
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A Whole Lotta Chave Hermitage (Single Blind) (Chez Kailin): 94/98/00/01/15 Flight. Reasonably fresh for a mature white Rhone. Layered aromatics of white fruit, mushroom and florals. Palate is waxy but not too heavy. Again reasonably fresh for this genre. My #2, Group #1.
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Took out to dinner. PnP. Cork was in good shape and fill was excellent. Medium to light yellow. Intriguing nose of spice and lanolin. Medium weight on the palate - good fruit still present and so sense of drying out. Quite remarkable at age 25.
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Funnily enough I get dried apricot here. Again some caramel notes. It's not as heavy as I expect for a Northern Rhone white but there's still body and structure. Good wine.
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Very wonderfull indeed, minerals galore, deep and light at the sa,me time, honey is here along with candid fruit and citrus. Thanks for the taste. #La Buca#DM Afterparty
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Golden yellow. Lovely, complex and deep aromas of marzipan, perfume and dried yellow fruits. Soft and clean mouth feeling, but also broad, majestic and powerful. Must be at its peak now, but will definitely last.
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Golden straw colour. Nose of fresh peach, apricot, mandarin orange and soaps and talcum in the bathroom of a woman with very expensive tastes. Palate is similar bright and fresh slightly confit peach and apricot with a nice stiff but fully harmonised backbone of peach and apricot stone. There is a nice lanolin mouthfeel in the mid-palate and the finish is beautifully peach fruit-driven and resonant. Light and feminine by typical Chave Hermitage standards but none the lesser for that......a really beautiful wine that deserves time to contemplate. Better on the second day so it definitely merits a long decant if drinking at one sitting.
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I was just overcoming a cold, thus I leaned on my drinking mates for formal tasting and rating. We enjoyed this as our aperitif (!) to an 88 Lafite, 04 Palmer & 86 Barton - good work if you can get it, eh lads?! This really showed beautifully - and for even longer than my similarly excellent tasting of this nearly a yr ago (Mar '14). Thanks for writing it up, Marc!
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A big thanks to Erik for bringing this one along! A really nice wine - it's been years since I tasted a Northern Rhone white. Very good; almost Burgundian (Chalonnaise) in quality when you get the lanolin, lemon - but then there's a spice element that pegs this as Rhone. With more air, picks up a great pineapple upside-down cake (cite Phil on this one!). A fun wine and a strong finish.
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16 vintages of Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage, Rouge and Blanc (E&R Wine Shop, Portland OR): The white of the night for me. Really intense orange marmalade aromas. Fantastic and wonderful smelling! Really lovely, rich palate. Just beautiful intensity of orange rind again. Very impressive, different but beautiful. It's decadent and sweet. Really intense beautiful eruption of beauty and grace on the finish. So elegant, and after a few minutes there's a nice puckering bitterness that lingers. What a beauty.
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750ml bottle stood for a couple days, PnP after 2 hrs in the fridge and then sitting open for 30 mins (i.e. not overly cold!). Alongside 1997 Beaucastel CdP Blanc VV, this was much lighter in color but deeper, richer and more complex on the palate than the Beau. Rhone candy! Surprising to me that, when served blind to a few aficionado friends, it fooled them entirely (guesses were Bordeaux & Burgundy!). I'm not sure I agree w/CT drinking window of "decades more from here" but, this bottle showed well enough that I'm not compelled to immediately open the next one! Still plenty fresh and lively. Medium finish. A real treat!
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Cellared since release; perfect cork. Light gold no sign of oxidation; rather mute on the nose but rich and full on the palate with some tannins to resolve. Not particularly enjoyable. Will cork over night and see how it is tomorrow.
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Tasted blind, this wine had a medium yellow center with clear rims. The medium- intensity nose seemed a bit oxidized at first but developed over the course of a couple hours to show pears and apples.
The rich and fruity core of this wine offers attractive lushness. However, the low acidity makes it tough for this wine to compare with white Burgundies.
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First time tasting this wine. Nice color, a little closed and musty initially however after 30 mins in the glass it opened up to reveal a very pleasant white, good fresh fruit core, nice minerality good balance and texture. I went back two hours later and found this wine was holding up well.
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Oh What a Night! aka Kelvin's Stag Party (Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck, Paragon): TCA. Very sad about this. It seemed quite flat at first, but with the corkiness not quite showing up. We kept giving this time, hoping that it would open up, but it never did. The cause slowly became clear, with the TCA starting to rear its ugly head. Pity. The wine had such an inviting nose, with beeswax, honey, some bread, white fruit and flowers. So nice, with just a little haunting hint of wet newspaper at the corners of the bouquet. Sadly, the palate was quite dead. Some spice, some frut, some almond flavours, but almost completely flat, with more wet cardboard / paper notes mulling the finish. Sigh.
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Very fresh and youthful nose, slighly buttered, with beeswax, modelling glue, and a lovely fruitbasket of melon, citrus, pineapples and flowers. Here's also a really serious spicy brown mineral note. On the palate it does a super performance, so young and fresh still. Everything's perfectly held together, without even a hint of oxidation. With its generous, rounded and suave mouthfeel - and only the slightest bitterness on the finish - this '94 Hermitage has lovely drinkability yet shows obvious potential for the long haul. Great wine, the score may even be too conservative.
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Wines Drwine Would Hate (Nopa (SF)): Pale gold. Brisk, fresh aromas of wax, white flowers, quinine, and the ineffable quasi-garrigue of white Hermitage. In the mouth, pure, fresh, mineral-inflected, and beautifully balanced with no sense of heaviness or alcoholic heat. This vintage is less heralded than some from the late 90s, but I like it a lot better, especially when I find a bottle like this one. It was also intriguing to compare this with the 1994 Savennieres opened a little later in the evening.
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This was a stellar bottle of wine. It's drinking very well now but will easily last several more years. Were I to open another bottle, I'd decant it for 1-2 hours prior to drinking.
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Chave-a-thon (Restaurant Michael (Winnetka, IL)): This wine was came across much younger than the 1999. It is often amazing how these wines transform with age. Clear on appearance seemingly quite young, perhaps yellow tinged color.Light perfumed nose, bit oily. Some noted gunflint mineral. Fat mouth feel with light delicate almond character and long finish, touch bitter. Smooth, bit warm in the mouth. 90
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Dinner with Yaacov, Mike and John (New York City, New York, USA): Rockstar showing. Amazing notes of honey and beeswax are soon followed by a fun kaleidoscope of marzipan and clove. The palate was powerful, oily, but not oppressive. There was some discussion that this had some of those nutty oxidized flavors from the weird sleeping phase these can go through, but clearly this was emerging from that slumber and showing awfully well. We revisited it a few hours later, and it was rocking. Terrific stuff.
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Domaine J.-L. Chave Cellar Visit, Tasting and Lunch (Hermitage): Tasting at Domaine. Slightly musty to start, but quickly cleared up with some charming summer flower aromas. Moderate fruit coming through, but excellent minerality, acidity and great textures from middle through finish. Ends with a good burst of white stone fruit.
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Copain Dinner at Craft NYC (New York): A bit stony, restrained - so much so that I think this was somewhat corked. Not having had Chave Hermitage blanc before, I didn't question it at the time and go back for a different sample. Didn't get much of anything from this. Judgment reserved.
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Final Four Blind Knockout (matt's house, highland park IL): nose: none of the oxidative tones that other have experienced, this has well balanced and mature tones of honeysuckle, beeswax, tropical citrus tones, and various hot oils with a touch of star fruit
taste: great medium and fat feel with mangoes, beeswax, honeysuckle, hot oils and tropical citrus tones. really good weight that flows well on the palate
overall: had a excellent medium gold color. I'm very glad that this wasn't on the bad side of the dart board. My first chave blanc and a very enjoyable experience
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Good golden color. The nose was seductively scented with heady honeyed floral notes telling you what this wine is all about. The flavor compnent was off a bit on the finish. Perhaps bottle variation? The crushed red pepper in Pierangelo's Mussels Marinara actually helped bring out the flavor in the wine. But, it still finished with a slight sour note.
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Lovely wine. Very harmonious balance of licorice and honeyed minerality. With air gained power. Finished very dry and almost saline; it was really deceptive though because it carried great weight and glycerality. I loved it. Thanks to Serge and Warren, this was beyond the call of duty.
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Tasting Group Dinner - Northern Rhône (Fugaise, Minneapolis): Smells like over-the-hill Riesling, and tastes like a witches' brew of apple cider, diesel, and rotting orange peel. Heavily oxidative. Quite nasty. I've had many bottles of older white Hermitage, including Chave, and based on how this bottle compared with the 1993 and 1995, it was either flawed or still in its oxidative phase.
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Mpls does Northern Rhone (Chave, Guigal, Jaboulet, Chapoutier, Clape, more): Popped and poured. A game I like to call Chave Hermitage Blanc roulette since I've had one winner and many oxidized losers of this wine. This bottle is pretty good. The deep gold color is a little alarming, but the nose has heavy floral notes but minimal oxidation. On the palate this is thick and syrupy with good presence, nice balance, and moderate length. Not a rock star, and not worth the current auction price, but nice nonetheless.
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Deep yellow. Not unlike the Savennieres I had last night with honey and almost meat broth on the nose. Viscous and long on the palate with adequate acidity to bind it. As always, an acquired taste but this seemed to have better balance than most.
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Casual Dinner with Great Wine with Friends (Chicago IL): Ripe tropical fruit on nose but subtle at the same time. Modest spice. Long finish still emphasizes fresh fruit. Perhaps in its peak drinking window, but this should easily hold at this level for at least a decade to come.
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Hermitage blanc JL Chave (INAO Vin-Passion, Bruxelles, Belgium): Nez de type minéral, "pétrole riesling", fougère, légumes, Bouche en opposition avec le nez: grasse, assagie, mais l'alcool domine l'équilibre; plus mineur; amertume finale, peu de finesse
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3/7/2024 - thesternowl wrote: 93 Points
Rhône or Nôwhere 2.0 (Malcolm, NE): The 1994 was initially a bit shy on the nose but after many hours in the decanter, it showed such amazing character. In fact, it shared some characteristics with a lightly peated single malt scotch, with light smoke, marmalade, honey, golden raspberry and wet stone. More of its character was unlocked with food. In this case, monkfish, sweet potato, leek, and winter truffle. Drink now through 2034+. Merci Matt!
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2/24/2024 - LW31 Likes this wine:
Lovely. Last bottle. Quite complex--savory, almost a saline quality. To my taste, this is at peak, wouldn't wait longer.
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4/3/2023 - Brolawa wrote:
M3. Drank at Cimarron. Elevation may have held back some notes, but structure and body was all there.
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4/9/2021 - Elpaninaro Likes this wine:
Tonight was a rare night of many firsts- this perhaps the greatest of all.
fine light gold color, textured nose with walnuts and game- substantial in scale but somewhat subdued, and then on the palate a fantastic immediate impact of smoky citrus fruit, white flower notes, racy broad fruit across the middle with lime and earth undertones on the long sleek finish, in the details a wine of excesses- but with a firm long acid spine perfectly balancing the powerful ripe fruit, a wine with which I have very little experience- and none with so much age- but I do hope that will change in time, quite a beauty with so many rich niches to explore- but with all of its elements coming together flawlessly to render a study in opulent sophistication.
****+, ready to go but time in hand.
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7/8/2020 - ProfAvi Likes this wine: 90 Points
I have to admit I have no idea where this bottle has come from.
As I'm a member of TWS in the UK I assume it's from a mixed case bought years ago and I've simply missed drinking this.
I've never had a white wine that wasn't a sticky this old before.
The fill was full - so I've stored it well.
The cork came out with no sign of deterioration.
And as soon as the bottle was opened I knew everything was OK!
Beautiful colour - lemony-gold
Creamy honey & lanolin on the nose, with a hint of spice.
Rich, viscous, luscious palate finishing on a nutty note. Just enough acidity not to be cloying.
I'm not getting any fruit on the nose but a touch of lemon (preserved rather than fresh) on the palate.
Will see how it develops over the evening.
After an hour some candied/ dried tropical fruit on the nose.
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3/1/2020 - sung251 Likes this wine: 92 Points
a bit tight out of the bottle but with some air it really opens up with rich stone fruit body and creamy texture. The acidity in the wine is just enough to keep it from getting unbalanced and over the top. A very well put together wine from northern rhone. The wine is at a great place now but definitely benefits from at least an hour of air.
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11/17/2019 - Nanda wrote: 88 Points
A Whole Lotta Chave Hermitage (Single Blind) (Chez Kailin): 94/98/00/01/15 Flight. Reasonably fresh for a mature white Rhone. Layered aromatics of white fruit, mushroom and florals. Palate is waxy but not too heavy. Again reasonably fresh for this genre. My #2, Group #1.
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1/22/2019 - rosenst1 wrote: 91 Points
Took out to dinner. PnP. Cork was in good shape and fill was excellent. Medium to light yellow. Intriguing nose of spice and lanolin. Medium weight on the palate - good fruit still present and so sense of drying out. Quite remarkable at age 25.
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4/10/2018 - MC2 Wines Likes this wine:
Funnily enough I get dried apricot here. Again some caramel notes. It's not as heavy as I expect for a Northern Rhone white but there's still body and structure. Good wine.
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5/7/2017 - beatles wrote: 94 Points
Very wonderfull indeed, minerals galore, deep and light at the sa,me time, honey is here along with candid fruit and citrus. Thanks for the taste. #La Buca#DM Afterparty
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1/27/2017 - AudunG wrote: 94 Points
Golden yellow. Lovely, complex and deep aromas of marzipan, perfume and dried yellow fruits. Soft and clean mouth feeling, but also broad, majestic and powerful. Must be at its peak now, but will definitely last.
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12/20/2015 - Goldstone wrote: 94 Points
Golden straw colour. Nose of fresh peach, apricot, mandarin orange and soaps and talcum in the bathroom of a woman with very expensive tastes. Palate is similar bright and fresh slightly confit peach and apricot with a nice stiff but fully harmonised backbone of peach and apricot stone. There is a nice lanolin mouthfeel in the mid-palate and the finish is beautifully peach fruit-driven and resonant. Light and feminine by typical Chave Hermitage standards but none the lesser for that......a really beautiful wine that deserves time to contemplate. Better on the second day so it definitely merits a long decant if drinking at one sitting.
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6/14/2015 - AtoZ wrote: flawed
Dark and wrong. Slightly seeped. Blueish cork.
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2/4/2015 - nortonnose wrote: 94 Points
I was just overcoming a cold, thus I leaned on my drinking mates for formal tasting and rating. We enjoyed this as our aperitif (!) to an 88 Lafite, 04 Palmer & 86 Barton - good work if you can get it, eh lads?! This really showed beautifully - and for even longer than my similarly excellent tasting of this nearly a yr ago (Mar '14). Thanks for writing it up, Marc!
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2/4/2015 - englishman's claret wrote: 93 Points
A big thanks to Erik for bringing this one along! A really nice wine - it's been years since I tasted a Northern Rhone white. Very good; almost Burgundian (Chalonnaise) in quality when you get the lanolin, lemon - but then there's a spice element that pegs this as Rhone. With more air, picks up a great pineapple upside-down cake (cite Phil on this one!). A fun wine and a strong finish.
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8/10/2014 - Burgundy Al wrote: 90 Points
Chave Hermitage Dinner with Erin & Jean-Louis Chave (MK Restaurant - Chicago IL): Nicely mature with ripe fruit some butterscotch and tropical notes. Moderate depth. Good now.
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7/30/2014 - David Paris (dbp) wrote: 95 Points
16 vintages of Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage, Rouge and Blanc (E&R Wine Shop, Portland OR): The white of the night for me. Really intense orange marmalade aromas. Fantastic and wonderful smelling! Really lovely, rich palate. Just beautiful intensity of orange rind again. Very impressive, different but beautiful. It's decadent and sweet. Really intense beautiful eruption of beauty and grace on the finish. So elegant, and after a few minutes there's a nice puckering bitterness that lingers. What a beauty.
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3/24/2014 - nortonnose wrote: 93 Points
750ml bottle stood for a couple days, PnP after 2 hrs in the fridge and then sitting open for 30 mins (i.e. not overly cold!). Alongside 1997 Beaucastel CdP Blanc VV, this was much lighter in color but deeper, richer and more complex on the palate than the Beau. Rhone candy! Surprising to me that, when served blind to a few aficionado friends, it fooled them entirely (guesses were Bordeaux & Burgundy!). I'm not sure I agree w/CT drinking window of "decades more from here" but, this bottle showed well enough that I'm not compelled to immediately open the next one! Still plenty fresh and lively. Medium finish. A real treat!
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2/5/2014 - rosenst1 wrote: 88 Points
Cellared since release; perfect cork. Light gold no sign of oxidation; rather mute on the nose but rich and full on the palate with some tannins to resolve. Not particularly enjoyable. Will cork over night and see how it is tomorrow.
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12/8/2013 - Vini Ciclismo Likes this wine: 92 Points
Gold. Honey, gentle spice. Rich palate but not heavy, and very smooth and well balanced. Finishes cleanly with no hard edges.
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1/22/2012 - fclarity wrote: 90 Points
Tasted blind, this wine had a medium yellow center with clear rims. The medium- intensity nose seemed a bit oxidized at first but developed over the course of a couple hours to show pears and apples.
The rich and fruity core of this wine offers attractive lushness. However, the low acidity makes it tough for this wine to compare with white Burgundies.
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11/28/2011 - paul195 wrote: 93 Points
First time tasting this wine. Nice color, a little closed and musty initially however after 30 mins in the glass it opened up to reveal a very pleasant white, good fresh fruit core, nice minerality good balance and texture. I went back two hours later and found this wine was holding up well.
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7/15/2011 - Alex H wrote: flawed
Bitter roots and white residue. A pity.
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7/8/2011 - Mingmong wrote: flawed
Flattish non-expressive nose. Fruit seems to be all gone, and just flat. Acidity all gone. Could be way over the hill or corked
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7/8/2011 - Paul S wrote: flawed
Oh What a Night! aka Kelvin's Stag Party (Imperial Treasure Super Peking Duck, Paragon): TCA. Very sad about this. It seemed quite flat at first, but with the corkiness not quite showing up. We kept giving this time, hoping that it would open up, but it never did. The cause slowly became clear, with the TCA starting to rear its ugly head. Pity. The wine had such an inviting nose, with beeswax, honey, some bread, white fruit and flowers. So nice, with just a little haunting hint of wet newspaper at the corners of the bouquet. Sadly, the palate was quite dead. Some spice, some frut, some almond flavours, but almost completely flat, with more wet cardboard / paper notes mulling the finish. Sigh.
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7/3/2011 - Finare Vinare wrote: 94 Points
Very fresh and youthful nose, slighly buttered, with beeswax, modelling glue, and a lovely fruitbasket of melon, citrus, pineapples and flowers. Here's also a really serious spicy brown mineral note. On the palate it does a super performance, so young and fresh still. Everything's perfectly held together, without even a hint of oxidation. With its generous, rounded and suave mouthfeel - and only the slightest bitterness on the finish - this '94 Hermitage has lovely drinkability yet shows obvious potential for the long haul. Great wine, the score may even be too conservative.
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2/23/2011 - darvid wrote:
Wines Drwine Would Hate (Nopa (SF)): Pale gold. Brisk, fresh aromas of wax, white flowers, quinine, and the ineffable quasi-garrigue of white Hermitage. In the mouth, pure, fresh, mineral-inflected, and beautifully balanced with no sense of heaviness or alcoholic heat. This vintage is less heralded than some from the late 90s, but I like it a lot better, especially when I find a bottle like this one. It was also intriguing to compare this with the 1994 Savennieres opened a little later in the evening.
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11/7/2010 - Tubbs wrote:
This was a stellar bottle of wine. It's drinking very well now but will easily last several more years. Were I to open another bottle, I'd decant it for 1-2 hours prior to drinking.
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10/26/2010 - KenK wrote: 90 Points
Chave-a-thon (Restaurant Michael (Winnetka, IL)): This wine was came across much younger than the 1999. It is often amazing how these wines transform with age. Clear on appearance seemingly quite young, perhaps yellow tinged color.Light perfumed nose, bit oily. Some noted gunflint mineral.
Fat mouth feel with light delicate almond character and long finish, touch bitter.
Smooth, bit warm in the mouth. 90
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10/11/2010 - Eric Likes this wine:
Dinner with Yaacov, Mike and John (New York City, New York, USA): Rockstar showing. Amazing notes of honey and beeswax are soon followed by a fun kaleidoscope of marzipan and clove. The palate was powerful, oily, but not oppressive. There was some discussion that this had some of those nutty oxidized flavors from the weird sleeping phase these can go through, but clearly this was emerging from that slumber and showing awfully well. We revisited it a few hours later, and it was rocking. Terrific stuff.
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9/11/2010 - Burgundy Al wrote: 91 Points
Domaine J.-L. Chave Cellar Visit, Tasting and Lunch (Hermitage): Tasting at Domaine. Slightly musty to start, but quickly cleared up with some charming summer flower aromas. Moderate fruit coming through, but excellent minerality, acidity and great textures from middle through finish. Ends with a good burst of white stone fruit.
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4/26/2010 - amateurwino wrote: flawed
Copain Dinner at Craft NYC (New York): A bit stony, restrained - so much so that I think this was somewhat corked. Not having had Chave Hermitage blanc before, I didn't question it at the time and go back for a different sample. Didn't get much of anything from this. Judgment reserved.
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4/4/2009 - KeithAkers wrote: 92 Points
Final Four Blind Knockout (matt's house, highland park IL): nose: none of the oxidative tones that other have experienced, this has well balanced and mature tones of honeysuckle, beeswax, tropical citrus tones, and various hot oils with a touch of star fruit
taste: great medium and fat feel with mangoes, beeswax, honeysuckle, hot oils and tropical citrus tones. really good weight that flows well on the palate
overall: had a excellent medium gold color. I'm very glad that this wasn't on the bad side of the dart board. My first chave blanc and a very enjoyable experience
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3/13/2009 - WineArchitect wrote: 90 Points
Good golden color. The nose was seductively scented with heady honeyed floral notes telling you what this wine is all about. The flavor compnent was off a bit on the finish. Perhaps bottle variation? The crushed red pepper in Pierangelo's Mussels Marinara actually helped bring out the flavor in the wine. But, it still finished with a slight sour note.
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2/8/2009 - Brad L wrote:
Lovely wine. Very harmonious balance of licorice and honeyed minerality. With air gained power. Finished very dry and almost saline; it was really deceptive though because it carried great weight and glycerality. I loved it. Thanks to Serge and Warren, this was beyond the call of duty.
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11/25/2008 - Siggy wrote:
Tasting Group Dinner - Northern Rhône (Fugaise, Minneapolis): Smells like over-the-hill Riesling, and tastes like a witches' brew of apple cider, diesel, and rotting orange peel. Heavily oxidative. Quite nasty. I've had many bottles of older white Hermitage, including Chave, and based on how this bottle compared with the 1993 and 1995, it was either flawed or still in its oxidative phase.
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11/25/2008 - Dave Dalluge wrote:
Mpls does Northern Rhone (Chave, Guigal, Jaboulet, Chapoutier, Clape, more): Popped and poured. A game I like to call Chave Hermitage Blanc roulette since I've had one winner and many oxidized losers of this wine. This bottle is pretty good. The deep gold color is a little alarming, but the nose has heavy floral notes but minimal oxidation. On the palate this is thick and syrupy with good presence, nice balance, and moderate length. Not a rock star, and not worth the current auction price, but nice nonetheless.
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11/4/2008 - drwine2001 wrote:
Deep yellow. Not unlike the Savennieres I had last night with honey and almost meat broth on the nose. Viscous and long on the palate with adequate acidity to bind it. As always, an acquired taste but this seemed to have better balance than most.
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10/13/2005 - Burgundy Al wrote: 92 Points
Casual Dinner with Great Wine with Friends (Chicago IL): Ripe tropical fruit on nose but subtle at the same time. Modest spice. Long finish still emphasizes fresh fruit. Perhaps in its peak drinking window, but this should easily hold at this level for at least a decade to come.
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4/26/2005 - PhDP wrote: 84 Points
Hermitage blanc JL Chave (INAO Vin-Passion, Bruxelles, Belgium): Nez de type minéral, "pétrole riesling", fougère, légumes,
Bouche en opposition avec le nez: grasse, assagie, mais l'alcool domine l'équilibre; plus mineur; amertume finale, peu de finesse
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