2000 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle

I threw a couple of espresso rubbed beef filets on the grill last night along with braised collard greens from my garden (a little bacon, garlic, red pepper flakes and chicken stock) and a cold new potato and green bean salad. I found a bottle of 2000 La Chapelle in my vinotemp at my farm so I thought it should work....and it did. The wine was medium bodied, dark ruby in color and showing just a bit of pink at the rim. I gave it about 45 minutes in the decanter before tasting....I got busy at the grill and I was deeply involved in a glass of Avery Brewing Company Maharaja Imperial IPA that my son sent me from Denver for fathers day. In any case, the La Chapelle was showing iron and stones on the nose with a bit of smokey bacon. Nicely elegant on the palate with a red raspberry and red currant flavor followed by a bit of coffee, green herb and a nice high toned acidity. Not the huge monster that Hermitage can sometimes be but well balanced Syrah. B+ on the Dale Scale (a solid A for The Maharaja IPA btw.)

Reply to
Bi!!
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Beer and wine sound good! The CW seems to be that Jaboulet's La Chapelle weakened in 90s, but started coming back in '99 & '00. Does that fit with your experiences? BTW, I love collard greens. I never had them growing up, even though I'm from the South.I think my mother (who grew up working poor, but strove mightily to make sure we were solidly middle class) regarded them as declass� preferring spinach and the like. I had to discover collards and chittlins on my own, though at least my parents introduced me to fried chicken, grits, etc.

Reply to
DaleW

I think that la Chapelle did weaken a bit through the mid 90's but I still enjoyed it and have a fair amount in my cellar. I prefer French syrah to the monster syrah's from Oz and the wierd ones from California. The balance and acidity give La Chapelle a better food profile and I tend to match food with it based on the vintage. Big vintages with big food, light er vintages with lighter food. I recently served a 1997 La Chapelle with grilled rabbit and it worked well.

I grew up in a very diverse neighborhood..now refered to as "the 'hood" so greens of all types, chitlin's with hot sauce, grits and corn bread were common even in Ohio.

Reply to
Bi!!

Bill, I understand what you're saying about La Chapelle, but for the prices they've been asking for the past decade+ I do expect more than just a decent food wine. Granted, I don't buy much Hermitage any more from any source, but from a QPR perspective, La Chapelle has underperformed IMO since the early '90s.

Mark Lipton (Hanging on to his few remaining Chaves and scanning the horizons for quality St. Joseph and Collines Rhodaniennes producers)

Reply to
Mark Lipton

I'm not sure I would classify it a merely a decent food wine but a quick check of Parker and WS show average scores in the low 90's respectively if you don't average in the 100 pointer in 1990 for the time periosd in question. You can't discount the effect that the scores have on the eventual price of the wine regardless of how you feel about Parker or WS. I always bought the wines on release and except for the 1990 never felt that I overpaid for the wine at the time so I don't feel the QPR effect as much as someone buying the wines in the secondary market might. A quick check of prices on wine searcher shows average prices in the $100-$150 range for wines from that time period so they have maintained a fairly high price point over the years. In any event, price and points aside, I always enjoyed the wine with or without food.

Reply to
Bi!!

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