Winemaker Notes
Bouquet: Highly complex, distinguished nose, revealing the Syrah's great finesse. Black fruits, sweet spices and, ultimately, finely woody.
Palate: Full and generous, silky tannins and a very long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
A big step up from Jaboulet’s La Petite Chapelle, this is on a par with some of Jaboulet’s past efforts. It’s richly concentrated, yet nuanced, with notes of blood and mineral added to ripe cassis fruit and accented by hints of vanilla and spice. The tannins form an almost creamy texture in the mouth, and the finish lingers a good long time. Drink 2012–2025.
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Wine Spectator
Very juicy, with nice drive to the black currant and boysenberry fruit, which is pushed by dark plum sauce, black licorice and sweet toast notes. The long, fleshy finish shows the polished grip of the vintage. Best from 2010 through 2022. 400 cases imported.
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Jeb Dunnuck
Now fully mature, the 2005 Hermitage La Chapelle is a leaner, more linear, medium-bodied example of this wine that has aged gracefully. It offers terrific aromatics of red and black currants, smoked meat, leather, soy sauce, and ground pepper, and on the palate, it has resolved tannins and some of the rusticity that was present in its youth has faded away. Today, it's silky and seamless, with a charming, elegant profile. It's not going to get any better, but it certainly has another decade of prime drinking, and a gradual decline after that. This is the first vintage where owner Caroline Frey was involved and was responsible for the blending of this wine. Best After 2022
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
One of the smallest and most important Syrah regions of northern Rhone, Hermitage is practically one single south-facing slope of crushed granite, thinly covered with varied, yet well-charted soil types. Many climats (well identified parcels) exist within Hermitage and while some smaller producers make single climat Syrahs, some larger ones blend to make one balanced expression of the appellation.
Though the AC regulations allow the addition of up to 15% white grapes to a red Hermitage, in practice it is usually made from Syrah alone. Winemaking is pretty traditional—or you might say historic—with hot fermentations and aging in older barrels of various sizes. The best wines, characterized by deep, dense and sexy flavors of black fruit, cocoa, licorice and tobacco, have massive textures and a solid 10-20 years aging potential.
The region of Hermitage is totally enclosed; the only place it could go really is to literally fall down its own hill into the city of Tain or the Rhone River. Soil erosion is a problem and terraces exist alongside the hill in order to keep the earth in place. Crozes-Hermitage encloses the region entirely to its north and south.
While Hermitage seems synonymous with some of the best Syrah on the planet, actually about one third of the wine produced here comes from white grapes. The full, lush and robust Marsanne or the less common, but almost more charming, Roussanne create wonderful whites in which the best have great potential for aging, like the reds.