Winemaker Notes
Intense ruby red, limpid and bright. Highly complex, distinguished nose, revealing the Syrah’s great finesse. Black fruits, sweet spices and, ultimately, finely woody. Full and generous, silky tannins and a very long finish.
Professional Ratings
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Jeb Dunnuck
The 2012 Hermitage La Chapelle is a step up over the 2011 and brings more density, depth, and opulence. Giving up a stunning bouquet of black currants, wood smoke, cured meats, and soy sauce, it hits the palate with full-bodied richness, a round, seamless, sexy mouthfeel, velvety tannins, and a great, great finish. There's a touch of the opulence and breadth of the 1990 in this beauty, and it's clearly on par with the benchmark 2009 and 2010 vintages. It can be drunk any time over the coming 20-30 years. Best After 2022
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The first year where winemaker Caroline Frey really feels her organic farming drive paid off, the 2012 Hermitage la Chapelle is a gorgeous effort that shows the purity and texture of the vintage, as well as the class of the le Meal lieu-dit. Offering up classic black raspberry and sweet dark fruit, Asian spice, toasted bread, licorice and savory herbs, this beauty is full-bodied, beautifully concentrated and has enough tannic grip to demand 4-5 years of bottle age. It will have 3+ decades of longevity.
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James Suckling
Beautiful aromas of iron, dark friut, plums, tar and dried meats. Subtle aromas. This is wonderfully refined and delicate with blueberry, slate, violet and light black-pepper character. Very refined and beautiful Gorgeous. Delicious now, or hold.
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Wine Spectator
Very solid, with a loamy frame around a core of fleshy plum, fig and blackberry flavors. A backdrop of licorice root and roasted espresso shows on the finish. A little shy on energy, this exhibits a hefty dose of toast, ample depth of fruit and a good tug of terroir. Best from 2017 through 2024.
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.