WTN: Chapoutier, Le Pavillon and Tain

"Chapoutier has a great tasting room. It’s less than a block from our hotel in Tain; right off the main drag, yet quiet and peaceful. The building is quaint and attractive, and it is very slick and professionally done inside. One of the most striking impressions is to step into the entrance and see, embedded in the floor under heavy glass, a series of pits filled with soils, each pit labeled with the appellation and the particular vineyard it comes from. Hey, it’s one thing to say “this is grown in shingle and clay soils” and it’s something totally different to stand there and look down at a shingle and clay soil...."
http://www.violentfermentation.blogspot.com

Chante-Alouette Hermitage Blanc 2006
100% Marsanne. Oak in the lead; mouth filling, rich, figgy aromas and flavors; slightly hot; shows its alcohol of 14.5%.

Saint Joseph Les Granits Blanc 2006
Also 100% Marsanne, and completely different from the preceding wine. Softer, distinctly floral, creamy in the mouth, less noticeable alcohol heat.

Ermitage Les Greffieux 2006
From a 3.5 ha parcel of shingle and clay soils. Finished at 15% abv. A Big Boy wine with French Roast coffee, vanilla and caramel. Young and tight.


Ermitage Le Pavillon 2006
From the vineyard we will soon be standing in. Young, hard, tight, ripe fruit still bound up in severe tannins, grudgingly opening up and expanding with some spiciness and some roasted fruit and coffee, but with years to go before it will reveal itself.

Ermitage Le Pavillon 2001
Ah, okay! With some bottle time, this 2001 is softer, more tame, with dark fruits, roasted meats and elegant, restrained tannins, offering more support and less containment. Slightly hot finish, but withal an excellent and lovely wine.

Hoke, when you say that Chapoutier has a "great tasting room" you may be damning them with faint praise. In a region where even the acknowledged masters of their AOC such as Verset and Chave basically operate out of their homes with little fanfare it is striking how Californian Chapoutier's operation in Tain looks. Granted, I haven't visited the other negoce operations of the area (Guigal, Jaboulet, Delas) who probably have similar sorts of facilities, but I found the Chapoutier operation too slick and impersonal by half when I visited in my naïve days in '98.

Mark Lipton

To us rarefied wine geeks, Chapoutier's tasting room would indeed be "slick". That's why I used the word.

But to many visitors not used to breathing the special air we breathe, Chapoutier could be seen as an entertaining---and highly informative---place to visit, where they can learn more about a wine they've heard of or enjoyed.

Californian? You're absolutely right, Mark. It impressed me that way too. Rustic, they are not.

Chapoutier has obviously chosen the path of appealling to a wide range of folks, and in a highly commercial way. Don't know that that necessarily affects their winemaking---maybe it does, if you extend the business model out. But maybe it doesn't.

Proof has to be in the wine.

Thanks for the blog link, Hoke. Will have to look into becoming a "follower." Are there any fees involved?

Thanks for the blog link, Hoke. Will have to look into becoming a "follower." Are there any fees involved?

Nope, no fees, JC.

I believe you get notification of new blog posts and have ability to comment, that's all.

Glad you like the blog.