Hermitage Blanc, J-L Chave 2006

The bottled 2006 Hermitage blanc is remarkably powerful (around 15% natural alcohol), and demonstrates the heights white wine varietals reached in the northern Rhone in 2006. Its sumptuous nose reminds me of a liqueur of white flowers intermixed with notions of truffles, white peaches, honeysuckle, marmalade, and crushed rocks. Dense, full-bodied, and super-powerful as well as flowery, with razor-like focus, this magnificent white Hermitage should drink well for 25-30 years.

Still fresh and lively, and drinking beautifully now at age 12, the 2006 Hermitage Blanc offers still fresh notes of buttered citrus, baking spices, white flowers, toasted nuts, and hints of licorice. A quintessential Hermitage Blanc, with incredible fruit, obvious minerality, and a richness that's offset by striking minerality and elegance, drink this beauty any time over the coming decade or more. Taking over the from his father, Gerard Chave, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the brilliant Jean-Louis Chave continues to keep his family estate at the top of the heap in regard to true reference point estates in the world today. Drinking a mature Hermitage from the Chave family is one of the greatest wine experiences a wine lover can have. These are majestic, singular wines. And while it would have been easy to rest on his laurels and reputation, Jean-Louis has done nothing of the sort and has worked tirelessly at the estate, overseeing the creation of a new cellar that was completed in 2014 as well as resurrecting numerous new vineyard sites in Saint Joseph, which are just now coming largely online. In addition, he and his wife, Erin Cannon-Chave, have created a négociant label called Chave Selection that offers fabulous bang-for-the-buck and includes both Northern and Southern Rhônes. Looking specifically at their Hermitage releases, the grapes are always destemmed, with the individual terroirs vinified separately in stainless steel and aged in small barrels, most being used. The percentage of new oak has decreased over the past few decades and today hovers around 20-30% new French oak. Blending occurs a few months before bottling, and the wines are unfiltered.Looking at the vintages reviewed here, the 2015s are from a magical vintage in the Northern Rhône, and both Hermitage releases are as profound as wine gets. The Cuvée Cathelin is a deeper, richer, more exotic wine, but good luck finding bottles in the market. I include that wine in the handful of greatest young wines I’ve ever been lucky enough to taste. The classic Hermitage is more classic and elegant, with a rare sense of minerality, structure, and concentration. These are both Desert Island wines. The 2016 Hermitage shows the more elegant style of the vintage, but certainly isn’t far from the 2015. In addition, this estate continues to be a bastion for true Hermitage Blanc, and the 2016 Hermitage Blanc delivers the richness and depth as well as minerality that can only be achieved from this magical hillside. Thankfully, this estate has ignored the ridiculous trend over the past decade toward producing so-called “fresher” and more “elegant” wines. The 2017s showed beautifully from barrel and have the sunny, upfront nature of the vintage. They don’t have the sheer density of the 2015s, but they have more sex appeal than the 2016s. In short, you can’t go wrong with any of these wines, and life is too short not to drink as much Chave as you can! (Drink by 2036)

Intense, rich and remarkably focused, this offers stunning purity of fruit, such as Jonagold apple and Cavaillon melon, along with enticing heather honey, roasted macadamia nut, orange blossom and dried persimmon notes, all laid over a dense but brilliantly defined palate. The nearly endless finish of beeswax and buttered brioche is absolutely fantastic. Drink now, or hold for a decade. Perhaps the best white produced here to date. Best after 2019.

This has a beautiful nose of barley sugar, marzipan and sweet decaying leaf mulch. It has rich, almost sweet quince fruit on the palate, honeyed and delicious, joined by walnut skin and chestnut honey. Powerful, rich, open and ready now, this is a regal white Hermitage with a very long finish. (Drink between 2019-2033)

Tasting through the component parts that will go into the 2006 Hermitage blanc, the Peleat, Rocoules, and l'Ermite, this appears to be another outstanding vintage chez Chave. Generally a blend of 80% Marsanne and 20% Roussanne, it is fascinating to see how the different sites, such as Peleat (pure finesse, elegance, and minerality), Rocoules (fat, honeysuckle, and loads of glcyerin), and l'Ermite (a combination of power, concentration, and extraordinary laser-like precision and minerality), combine to produce an amazingly rich, concentrated wine that should turn out to be as good as the blockbuster 2005. I don't think the 2006 has the power and density of the 2005, but it's very close. I would drink either one at any time. It should drink well for 20+ years.