Delicious and not maderized. Brownish gold, akin to an aged Sauterne. Decanted and drank over 2 hours. Nose of beeswax, honeysuckle, caramelized apples and molten rock. On the palate rich and fat, great acidity and minerality, medium bodied, nice dry finish and no sweetness at all. Excellent.
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Sourced from the caves of Chapoutier in Thain-Ermitage. Unfortunately this is a bad wine and time has taken its toll. The say when they age the become unpredictable, close and open , become special etc etc. To our opinion and experience of trying quite a few of these wines from CdP blanc to Northern Rhone these wines are best tried relatively young and fresh. We have one more bottle of this and we doubt it will be any better. I hope we are proven wrong. 75
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Best bottle I've had of this wonderful luscious wine. Dark golden yellow, decanted and aerated and drank over an hour. Simply wonderfully balanced, sweet nose of honeycomb, rocks, apricots, marzipan, popcorn whilst buttery and fat on the palate, no sweetness or maderization. Medium to full bodied, nice long velvety finish. Amazing bottle!
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Duration: 3 hours Food: Salmon, steak Aroma: honeysuckle, pear, red date, hint of Flintstone Note: I've had a 1994 last month and this delivers pretty consistent feeling with the 94, opens with a floral aroma following hints of Flintstone and some citrus on the palate. With an amazingly long aftertaste that is both thick and sweet, this wine could match any oily and greasy food but at the same time could also pair well with decent and carefully prepared French food. I've always liked Chapoutier's whites, especially aged ones that gives just the right level of sophistication yet never too full bodied.
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Slightly less pristine bottle than the last one. Decanted and drank over two hours+. Did not chill post decanting and should have a bit. Deep golden color, apricots, honeysuckle on the nose along with minerals and stone. Luscious entry on the palate, fat and rich mid palate and a nice vibrant finish for this delightful full bodied wine. Hope the next bottle is better and will try to preserve the temperature at around 13 degrees next time.
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Flabbergasting. Deep golden color, decanted and put the decanter in a bucket filled with cold water to preserve the best drinking temperature. On the nose honeysuckle, stones, dried apricots, stone and minerals. What a complex wine that pairs with a variety of foods. Excellent fat entry on the palate, great structured this is a stunner mid palate almost viscous in density, full bodied, multi layered, and an excellent finish, no sweetness just pure bliss with stones and minerals dominating. My kind of wine.
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Finally we get a great bottle. Needed like 1 hour of decanting and it has to be served chilled but not cold (Made a big difference) . Definitely one needs to like the style. We have tried this before with average results but this Magnum tonight performed at par to the hype. The notion that the wine goes to sleep and resurfaces post 5-7yrs (Chapoutier supports the theory too) seems to hold true. Well secondary fruit, rich apricot, mineral wine. Open and well developed, the fresh feel is gone but still the wine is alive and vibrant. That characteristic marsanne bitterness is still there and the wine seems to have a lot of life ahead of it. Andreas 94 / Nicoletta 96 so 95. Gladly we have 2 more bottles!
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Drank at Home This is a very different type of white wine with a lot of sherry notes and quite oxidised. It is pleasant with a nose of raisins, citrus, walnuts and Sherry.
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At age 18, this wine is blossoming... But you need to like the style. I really didn't see this turn-around coming: my last bottle was dead, five years ago. The nose shows Madeira aromas, orange peel, walnuts, wax, golden raisins. Rich texture and deep, nutty flavors with assertive acidity and a long finish. My wife (who doesn't love old Madiera, despite having tried some great ones) didn't love this either...
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Just merging from the "in betweens". Marzipan, lanolin, a little honeyed fruit, and more of a stony feel than the 91 Chave a few days ago. Very dense and powerful, but not at all heavy or cloying. Deep and interestingly simultaneously very expansive on the palate while maintaining excellent focus. On the palate more almond-marzipan, peach pit, and mineral. Very deep and very long. Gaining nuance and depth with air and even more so the next day. Rich, powerful and very well balanced. I suspect this will be even better in 5-10+. I think I like Chapoutier's whites more than his reds. Impressive. 94+ pts.
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Colore ambrato, quasi da biodinamico ossidato. Forse ha sofferto i due mostri che aveva di fianco, ma era davvero stanco. Al naso fiori d'arancio, mentolato, quasi dolce in bocca. Dopo al naso esce dell'erba secca, verde, dadolato, e miele al naso.
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Alcohol :: 13.9% It was quick a luck to be able to taste this wine. Med golden, vibrant in color. A very unique aromatic profile, layer and layer of pure honey citrus and yellow fruits, white flower, almond nut with huge mineral, sea shell and sea breeze background, this immediately link me to the dry sherry that I had sometime ago, just a tad more riper, complex and broad-shoulder. The powerful palate is equivalent as fabulous as the nose, super clean, perfectly balance that you hardly notice the underlying richness and concentration and the 13.9% alcohol of the wine. Slight sweet entry with tons of honey yellow fruits, nut, mineral with touch of white flower nuances with ripe, lively acidity provide a firm support and precision that quickly turn to very dry, clean, long persistent finish with mineral and sea shell aftertaste. This is a wine that you will either love it or hate it. Buy - Maybe.
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A Foray to the N. Rhone: Cote Rotie, Misc Hermitage and a La Chapelle vertical (Dino's Restaurant): Decanted for about 2 hours. David had remarked that the wine was quite reticent upon opening, but this wine was alive in the glass. Waxy aromas of honeycomb with light floral elements, it was a nice aged example, past its primary fruit. The wine had significant weight while remaining somewhat delicate on the palate; a requisite sign of great whites. I wasn’t blown away by it, as it seemed to lack another dimension of complexity and finish. It also lacked verve with its fruit, but to be expected with advanced age. Enjoy now.
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1990's Northern Rhone Dinner @ Dino (Dino, Washington DC): Dull nickel color. Apricot nose with glycerin and diesel. This wine changed significant after only 4-5 minutes in my glass. Somewhat boring at first, this glass changed into a really stunning glass of wine. There was a fair amount of raw vanilla bean and roasted nuts on the palate and a really seductive creaminess as well.
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90s Northern Rhone Tasting (Dino's): Smelled oxidized at first, but with air in the glass revealed itself as an incredibly rich and complex white. Loads of baked fruit, custard, smoke, butter. Deep and long. Still has some acidity kicking. Slight heat, but still fascinating.
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Quick follow up post a Chapoutier Masterclass, given by the man himshelf. He confirmed the notiona that most of the white hermitage (and his especially) seem to close down around year 7 and open again in yr 15 or so. Keep this in mind and good luck.
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Yellow to dark yellow color in the glass, clear hue throughout. Nose of paraffin, Windex and yellow pears. Light, singular flavor of yellow pears. Light acidity and body. Drink now.
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Enjoyed via the courtesy of Wells Guthrie. During lunch, Wells grabbed this bottle from the cellar to help us understand where he sees white wine, where his style and passion evolve from. 100% Marsanne, crushed rocks, minerals and a lemon chiffon nose. The color is yellow gold. As much as the nose portends richness, and even with the glycerine lemon-oil notes and marmalade, the wine is not sweet or cloying. Very nice and a first for me in this kind of wine.
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HDH BYO Dinner (Blackbird - Chicago IL): Magnum. Very similar to another time tasted a few months ago. Good stone fruit on nose and palate with rich butterscotch. Unctuous and oily, with heat coming through at end.
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Hart Davis Hart BYO Dinner (Blackbird): From Mag. Rich butterscotch with some spice and perfume. Tons of richness here - one of the better examples I've had of this wine.
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Hart Davis Hart – BYOB (Blackbird Chicago): From Magnum: Clean dry mineral nose and a bit shy. Great rounded weight in mouth showing a stone white fruit character and subtle complexities. After tasting Beaucastel this came across light and almost simple with slight hot edge. Relative to my expectations this was disappointing as subtle and bit hot. 89
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LdC 4th Annual Truffle Dinner (Primehouse): Full golden color. Big rich sweet perfume with an apple pie note. Full glycerin palate with a warm butterscotch note and a bitter finish. Odd that this showed so much worse than the more recent tasting from mag. These were also served a bit warm which probably didn't help.
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(Chez Nous/French lunch club): A beautiful example of patience, now clearing it's "dumb" phase. Initially too cold, as it warmed up the fruit came out. Great with escargot.
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At this stage of its life, the wine is basically undrinkable, and frankly I don't have high hopes for it to ever recover.
The color is an amber-tinted straw. Viscous, leaving visible legs in the glass. The nose is slightly sour/maderized with a honeyed tone. From the glass the wine was initially disjointed but with a dominent sweetness, then quickly faded and started seeming waterly, like very dilute honey, with a noticable alcohol level and a very short finish. Pretty much undrinkable.
Parker claims these wines are sometimes reborn in a positive way. If you have this wine, I would hold it until 2015.
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1/9/2022 - Winning_Wines wrote: flawed
Corked.
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10/29/2016 - the player Likes this wine: 94 Points
Delicious and not maderized. Brownish gold, akin to an aged Sauterne. Decanted and drank over 2 hours. Nose of beeswax, honeysuckle, caramelized apples and molten rock. On the palate rich and fat, great acidity and minerality, medium bodied, nice dry finish and no sweetness at all. Excellent.
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6/21/2016 - Papies wrote: 75 Points
Sourced from the caves of Chapoutier in Thain-Ermitage.
Unfortunately this is a bad wine and time has taken its toll. The say when they age the become unpredictable, close and open , become special etc etc. To our opinion and experience of trying quite a few of these wines from CdP blanc to Northern Rhone these wines are best tried relatively young and fresh. We have one more bottle of this and we doubt it will be any better. I hope we are proven wrong. 75
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4/22/2016 - the player wrote: flawed
Wine was madeirased unfortunately. What a shame
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11/29/2015 - the player Likes this wine: 94 Points
Best bottle I've had of this wonderful luscious wine. Dark golden yellow, decanted and aerated and drank over an hour. Simply wonderfully balanced, sweet nose of honeycomb, rocks, apricots, marzipan, popcorn whilst buttery and fat on the palate, no sweetness or maderization. Medium to full bodied, nice long velvety finish. Amazing bottle!
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3/22/2015 - TWSA wrote: 93 Points
Duration: 3 hours
Food: Salmon, steak
Aroma: honeysuckle, pear, red date, hint of Flintstone
Note: I've had a 1994 last month and this delivers pretty consistent feeling with the 94, opens with a floral aroma following hints of Flintstone and some citrus on the palate. With an amazingly long aftertaste that is both thick and sweet, this wine could match any oily and greasy food but at the same time could also pair well with decent and carefully prepared French food. I've always liked Chapoutier's whites, especially aged ones that gives just the right level of sophistication yet never too full bodied.
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3/2/2015 - the player Likes this wine: 93 Points
See previous notes. This wine can really pair with any food.
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1/4/2015 - the player Likes this wine: 93 Points
Slightly less pristine bottle than the last one. Decanted and drank over two hours+. Did not chill post decanting and should have a bit. Deep golden color, apricots, honeysuckle on the nose along with minerals and stone. Luscious entry on the palate, fat and rich mid palate and a nice vibrant finish for this delightful full bodied wine. Hope the next bottle is better and will try to preserve the temperature at around 13 degrees next time.
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12/20/2014 - the player Likes this wine: 95 Points
Flabbergasting. Deep golden color, decanted and put the decanter in a bucket filled with cold water to preserve the best drinking temperature. On the nose honeysuckle, stones, dried apricots, stone and minerals. What a complex wine that pairs with a variety of foods. Excellent fat entry on the palate, great structured this is a stunner mid palate almost viscous in density, full bodied, multi layered, and an excellent finish, no sweetness just pure bliss with stones and minerals dominating. My kind of wine.
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6/27/2014 - Papies wrote: 95 Points
Finally we get a great bottle. Needed like 1 hour of decanting and it has to be served chilled but not cold (Made a big difference) . Definitely one needs to like the style. We have tried this before with average results but this Magnum tonight performed at par to the hype. The notion that the wine goes to sleep and resurfaces post 5-7yrs (Chapoutier supports the theory too) seems to hold true. Well secondary fruit, rich apricot, mineral wine. Open and well developed, the fresh feel is gone but still the wine is alive and vibrant. That characteristic marsanne bitterness is still there and the wine seems to have a lot of life ahead of it. Andreas 94 / Nicoletta 96 so 95. Gladly we have 2 more bottles!
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6/20/2014 - RayOB wrote: 90 Points
Drank at Home
This is a very different type of white wine with a lot of sherry notes and quite oxidised. It is pleasant with a nose of raisins, citrus, walnuts and Sherry.
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1/18/2014 - KPB Likes this wine: 91 Points
At age 18, this wine is blossoming... But you need to like the style. I really didn't see this turn-around coming: my last bottle was dead, five years ago. The nose shows Madeira aromas, orange peel, walnuts, wax, golden raisins. Rich texture and deep, nutty flavors with assertive acidity and a long finish. My wife (who doesn't love old Madiera, despite having tried some great ones) didn't love this either...
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11/23/2013 - 3daywinereview.com wrote: 93 Points
Excellent with honey, floral and orange peel. Medium finish and in a great place. Drink now.
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11/21/2013 - cct wrote: 94 Points
Just merging from the "in betweens". Marzipan, lanolin, a little honeyed fruit, and more of a stony feel than the 91 Chave a few days ago. Very dense and powerful, but not at all heavy or cloying. Deep and interestingly simultaneously very expansive on the palate while maintaining excellent focus. On the palate more almond-marzipan, peach pit, and mineral. Very deep and very long. Gaining nuance and depth with air and even more so the next day. Rich, powerful and very well balanced. I suspect this will be even better in 5-10+. I think I like Chapoutier's whites more than his reds. Impressive. 94+ pts.
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11/3/2012 - 14frimaire wrote:
... And this one was good. Who knows?
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7/28/2012 - markellen.foodies@gmail.com wrote: 92 Points
@ Tuyo w John Hilliard, Chrisitine Bruce, Roberta & David Ehrenreich. David's wine. Has aged well. Golden Yellow with excellent minerality.
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12/30/2011 - Jossik wrote: 82 Points
Colore ambrato, quasi da biodinamico ossidato. Forse ha sofferto i due mostri che aveva di fianco, ma era davvero stanco. Al naso fiori d'arancio, mentolato, quasi dolce in bocca. Dopo al naso esce dell'erba secca, verde, dadolato, e miele al naso.
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8/6/2011 - KingBarolo wrote:
Drank with Harold...very disappointing..old, flat sherry.couldn't finish.
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5/30/2011 - aof wrote: 91 Points
Waxy, butterscotch caramel flavors with considerable heat. A bit disappointing.
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3/27/2011 - emkc wrote: flawed
Flat. Bad storage. Heading downhill. Drinking like a non-sweet dessert wine
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2/4/2011 - 14frimaire wrote:
More butterscotch. What happened?
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11/20/2010 - Sleepy Dave wrote:
Alcohol :: 13.9%
It was quick a luck to be able to taste this wine. Med golden, vibrant in color. A very unique aromatic profile, layer and layer of pure honey citrus and yellow fruits, white flower, almond nut with huge mineral, sea shell and sea breeze background, this immediately link me to the dry sherry that I had sometime ago, just a tad more riper, complex and broad-shoulder. The powerful palate is equivalent as fabulous as the nose, super clean, perfectly balance that you hardly notice the underlying richness and concentration and the 13.9% alcohol of the wine. Slight sweet entry with tons of honey yellow fruits, nut, mineral with touch of white flower nuances with ripe, lively acidity provide a firm support and precision that quickly turn to very dry, clean, long persistent finish with mineral and sea shell aftertaste. This is a wine that you will either love it or hate it. Buy - Maybe.
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6/30/2010 - PeterH wrote: 95 Points
Wow, what a fantastic bottle of Marsanne. A tiny bit of sherry flavor added to the complexity. Delicious and ready to go...
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3/11/2010 - Faryan wrote: 91 Points
A Foray to the N. Rhone: Cote Rotie, Misc Hermitage and a La Chapelle vertical (Dino's Restaurant): Decanted for about 2 hours. David had remarked that the wine was quite reticent upon opening, but this wine was alive in the glass. Waxy aromas of honeycomb with light floral elements, it was a nice aged example, past its primary fruit. The wine had significant weight while remaining somewhat delicate on the palate; a requisite sign of great whites. I wasn’t blown away by it, as it seemed to lack another dimension of complexity and finish. It also lacked verve with its fruit, but to be expected with advanced age. Enjoy now.
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3/11/2010 - tooch wrote: 90 Points
1990's Northern Rhone Dinner @ Dino (Dino, Washington DC): Dull nickel color. Apricot nose with glycerin and diesel. This wine changed significant after only 4-5 minutes in my glass. Somewhat boring at first, this glass changed into a really stunning glass of wine. There was a fair amount of raw vanilla bean and roasted nuts on the palate and a really seductive creaminess as well.
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3/10/2010 - jahlove wrote: 93 Points
90s Northern Rhone Tasting (Dino's): Smelled oxidized at first, but with air in the glass revealed itself as an incredibly rich and complex white. Loads of baked fruit, custard, smoke, butter. Deep and long. Still has some acidity kicking. Slight heat, but still fascinating.
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11/21/2009 - Papies wrote:
Quick follow up post a Chapoutier Masterclass, given by the man himshelf. He confirmed the notiona that most of the white hermitage (and his especially) seem to close down around year 7 and open again in yr 15 or so. Keep this in mind and good luck.
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9/12/2009 - wineismylife wrote:
Paul Does Dallas - Berserker Style (Eden, Dallas, TX): WIMLNR
Tasted September 12, 2009 at an offline.
Yellow to dark yellow color in the glass, clear hue throughout. Nose of paraffin, Windex and yellow pears. Light, singular flavor of yellow pears. Light acidity and body. Drink now.
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9/6/2009 - Papies wrote:
Nose of apricots on the open but then went flat and harsh very fast. Maybe something wrong with this one..
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6/7/2009 - Frank Murray III wrote:
Enjoyed via the courtesy of Wells Guthrie. During lunch, Wells grabbed this bottle from the cellar to help us understand where he sees white wine, where his style and passion evolve from. 100% Marsanne, crushed rocks, minerals and a lemon chiffon nose. The color is yellow gold. As much as the nose portends richness, and even with the glycerine lemon-oil notes and marmalade, the wine is not sweet or cloying. Very nice and a first for me in this kind of wine.
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3/26/2009 - Burgundy Al wrote: 90 Points
HDH BYO Dinner (Blackbird - Chicago IL): Magnum. Very similar to another time tasted a few months ago. Good stone fruit on nose and palate with rich butterscotch. Unctuous and oily, with heat coming through at end.
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3/26/2009 - winefool wrote: 94 Points
Hart Davis Hart BYO Dinner (Blackbird): From Mag. Rich butterscotch with some spice and perfume. Tons of richness here - one of the better examples I've had of this wine.
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3/26/2009 - KenK wrote: 89 Points
Hart Davis Hart – BYOB (Blackbird Chicago): From Magnum: Clean dry mineral nose and a bit shy. Great rounded weight in mouth showing a stone white fruit character and subtle complexities. After tasting Beaucastel this came across light and almost simple with slight hot edge. Relative to my expectations this was disappointing as subtle and bit hot. 89
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1/9/2009 - Burgundy Al wrote: 89 Points
Fourth Annual White Truffle Dinner (David Burke's Primehouse - Chicago IL): Also showing sweet fruit aromas, mostly stone fruit and butterscotch. Fat, oily textures, very subdued flavors that are good but imperfectly balanced and showing some heat on finish.
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1/9/2009 - winefool wrote: 90 Points
LdC 4th Annual Truffle Dinner (Primehouse): Full golden color. Big rich sweet perfume with an apple pie note. Full glycerin palate with a warm butterscotch note and a bitter finish. Odd that this showed so much worse than the more recent tasting from mag. These were also served a bit warm which probably didn't help.
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8/10/2008 - madeiradog wrote:
Bottle appeared to be coming out of the sleep phase with some almond and honeysuckle. I will reserve judgment.
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7/27/2008 - aof wrote: 92 Points
lovely.
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1/18/2008 - tacman wrote: 92 Points
(Chez Nous/French lunch club): A beautiful example of patience, now clearing it's "dumb" phase. Initially too cold, as it warmed up the fruit came out. Great with escargot.
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9/15/2007 - BeavisCC wrote: 94 Points
Lovely, thick, balanced, big. Great depth and finish. Hard to tell if this is at peak, as I haven't sampled enough white hermitage over the years.
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11/16/2006 - Eric wrote:
Tasting note from memory. Some buttered popcorn and almond. Pretty darned closed. Oily, powerful and really holding back right now.
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5/30/2006 - Russell Faulkner wrote: 91 Points
More open, bigger and more textured, more complete, very thick.
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11/18/2005 - KPB wrote: 75 Points
At this stage of its life, the wine is basically undrinkable, and frankly I don't have high hopes for it to ever recover.
The color is an amber-tinted straw. Viscous, leaving visible legs in the glass. The nose is slightly sour/maderized with a honeyed tone. From the glass the wine was initially disjointed but with a dominent sweetness, then quickly faded and started seeming waterly, like very dilute honey, with a noticable alcohol level and a very short finish. Pretty much undrinkable.
Parker claims these wines are sometimes reborn in a positive way. If you have this wine, I would hold it until 2015.
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2/12/2005 - Eric wrote: 99 Points
Rhônes and dinner with Robert Parker (Baltimore, MD): Oh wow, this is just surreal from start to finish, perhaps the richest white wine I have ever tasted. I can still feel and taste this one 18 hours later.
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