Domaine Jean Louis Chave, Hermitage, Rouge 2019

A powerhouse of a wine that flirts with perfection, the 2019 Hermitage reveals a dense purple hue and an extraordinary bouquet of sweet blue fruits supported by notes of crushed stone, lead pencil, leather, and ground pepper, with hints of flowers in the background. 

Full-bodied, stunningly pure, and massively concentrated, yet with riveting precision and elegance, it needs to be hidden in the back of the cellar for a decade and will evolve for 30, 40, if not 50 years. Tasting the trilogy of the 2018, 2019, and 2020 over the coming decades will be the equivalent of wine nirvana.

Drink 2032 - 2059

Inky garnet coloeur. Seductively perfumed, mineral-accented dark berries, potpourri, smoky bacon and olive aromas show superb definition and spicy lift. Offers intense, spice-laced blueberry, bitter cherry, fruitcake, exotic spice and violet pastille flavours that slowly deepen and become sweeter through the back half. 

Distinctly powerful, in the style of the vintage, but vibrant as well, with a strikingly long finish that features reverberating floral, exotic spice and mineral qualities and steadily mounting tannins.

Drink 2031 - 2044

A tasting of barrel samples of different lieux-dits: Péléat, Beaumes, Ermite, Le Méal, Bessards. Long, slow fermentations due to the high potential alcohols this year, some barrels reaching over 15% - at the limit of what the indigenous yeasts can handle. Even the Bessards component, which is usually so strict and skeletal, is full of fruit this year. 

The last exceptionally hot year was 2003, which produced a highly atypical wine with notably jammy fruit. That’s not the case in 2019 - the fruit is fresh and lively. It’s hard to judge at this stage; the alcohol is high and may always feel warm. Either way, it will provide great pleasure and impact, despite its extreme style.

Drink 2029 - 2044