Might this be the next vintage of La Chapelle to crack triple digits? Knockout aromas of crushed stone, violets, blueberries, and cassis mark the nose of the 2019 Hermitage La Chapelle, while the full-bodied palate is undeniably more intense and powerful than the more elegant 2018. Rich and velvety, it coats the mouth with dark fruit and creamy-textured espresso, yet retains remarkable length and licorice-derived peppery freshness on the finish. Wow!

Compared to the La Maison Bleue, the 2019 Hermitage La Chapelle is more closed, tight, and primary, with a focused, full-bodied style that carries impressive black and blue fruits, graphite, bloody meat, and ample minerality. Structured and tannic, yet wonderfully concentrated and pure, it's not for those seeking instant gratification, but it’s another stunning Hermitage in the making.

The flagship bottling of Hermitage “La Chapelle” from Caroline Frey is treated the same as the La Maison Bleue in the cellars, but the fruit for this bottling hails from different lieux à dits on the hill: mostly from Le Méal and Les Bessards, with smaller portions of the blend from parcels in Les Rocoules and Les Greffeiux. Like the La Maison Bleue bottling in 2019, the La Chapelle was raised in fifteen percent new oak (both barriques and demi-muids) for eighteen months and comes in listed at 15.5 percent octane in this vintage, despite Madame Frey and her team at Jaboulet being one of the earliest harvesters on the hill of Hermitage each year. The wine is clearly a legend in the making, showing no signs of sur maturité in its complex and sappy nose of sweet dark berries and cassis, pepper, roasted venison, woodsmoke, stony soil tones, violets and just a hint of oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very pure, with bottomless depth at the core, ripe, firm tannins, excellent balance and focus and a long, nascently complex and utterly seamless finish. This is certainly a big wine, but it is so impeccably balanced that one does not have the sense of either power or muscle, but rather simply incredible depth and intensity of flavor. It is most assuredly not hot on the(more...)

A big, rich wine with intense fruit, showing blackberry, black olive and black truffle character. Full-bodied and layered with chewy tannins that are soft and juicy. It’s a little warm on the finish. Yet, the decadence is so attractive and the phenolics keep it in line. This is very solid. Try after 2024.