September 16, 2023 - A Delightful Dinner in Vienna: Deep yellow with a bit of amber. Beeswax and honey. Full bodied and creamy without any sense of heaviness. Complex, long, nutty without overt oxidation, and still with great verve, which amazed me given the hot, low acid vintage. I rarely try white Hermitage, but this bottle was great and showed how they can exit their adolescence and turn into something special.
April 9, 2023 - Easter dinner. Funky and sherried, not that familiar with Marsanne but not my bag. Tasted flat and a bit rank. Maybe some folks dig but at best an acquired taste and perhaps the vintage isn’t doing it any favors.
December 29, 2022 - Almond cake, lanolin, and beeswax on the nose, following through to the palate. Very long finish. Sexy, voluptuous and rich, in a bone-dry package. Needs a long decant. This is one of those wines that keeps drawing you back for another sip and forces you to ration out the last few sips as you get near the end of the glass. Confirms that Chave blanc is one of the great white wines in the world.
November 2, 2022 - Tasted blind, this wine was a bit of a ringer. It had a light gold center with clear rims. The medium intensity nose put forth apricot, pear, apple, and some soil.
This was quite tight in both the nose and mouth at first. It needed many hours of air to fill out. The mouth was a bit dilute in the beginning but filled out nicely over several hours. There was good acidity and length.
My guess is there is a couple points of upside here in 5-10 years. Impressive for what is considered an off vintage.
October 1, 2022 - Honey and minerals in the bouquet. On the palate very complex and tasty with some medicine (in a positive meaning) beautiful acidity, a pleasant touch of sweetness and a great length. Another WOTN.
July 14, 2022 - Full gold. Waxy, lanolin, a touch of honey and. Stones minerality. Broad, very broad but also very smooth, but with a weight and heft that makes its presence felt. Served cool there’s a line here, but not enough to get away from the vintage, and yet despite the heft the 15% abv isn’t obvious in any sense of heat. As it warms there’s more nuance and sufficient interest but that broad brick wall obscures any real acidity, line or more importantly, energy. In some ways this is a product of the vintage, and in some ways it transcends it. Savour a glass but possibly not a bottle. ***1/2
June 23, 2022 - Chave: "In the name of science" (Chicago, IL): A very interesting wine, especially with the 2005 next to it, in that this actually didn't feel like the highest alcohol/ripest wine there was. The fruit profile is incredibly sweet, and you almost think you're getting a dessert wine, but then you realize the palate is bone dry, there's no acidity, an oily texture, and a bitter finish. This was mercifully not as intense as the 2005.
January 3, 2021 - Oily, unctuous, waxy, and overal heavily oxidative. Super sherried. Lanolin? I imagine perpetuated by the scorched vintage. Very interesting but not my thing... yet.
December 20, 2020 - Big bold sweet northern rhone white with 15% abv
It’s a good wine if you enjoy the style but not my cup of tea.
November 2, 2020 - Two bottles with identical profiles given an aerated decant together and kept in the fridge for a couple of hours before emerging for grandson's birthday dinner.
Absolutely singing. Golden (but no hint of oxidisation). Packed with florals, honeysuckle and concentrated white stoned exotic fruit. Touch of viscosity as well as a hint of granitic minerality not noted earlier. Good acidity preserves balance. Splendid.
At its peak and for the next three or so years.