I drank an ’89 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle the other night that we brought to Mas (farmhouse) in New York’s West Village (Galen Zamarra’s restaurant on a really charming part of Downing Street). It may be as close as I’ll come to a truly religious experience. If you like Syrah then you’ll fall in love with the reds from the Northern Rhone. And if you don’t like Syrah, then you probably haven’t experienced the reds from the Northern Rhone yet.  

Our bottle of '89 Jaboulet Hermitage La Chapelle

Good Northern Rhones from good vintages will age forever (or long enough that it might as well be forever). For me, they have a magical and mythical appeal.

Perhaps it is the way the wines are made. For starters, the vines grow on exceedingly steep hills that scare away any and all machine harvesters. Grapes must be painstakingly picked by hand and carried down the slopes on small sledges before being hand-sorted; yields from these vineyards are ridiculously low.

Back to the wine. Soft, silky and lush. Big but not overpowering. Smooth, but not too smooth. Thick but not sludge-like. Jaboulet nailed it with the 1989 effort; the wine has aged gracefully and has many years ahead of it (although it is in prime drinking form now). The color is dark and inky, and the wine has a beautiful nose. Notes of blueberries and blackberries and a 30-second-plus finish.

The name of Hermitage La Chapelle is derived from the little chapel Saint-Christophe that overlooks the terraced vineyards in Hermitage that have been in the Jaboulet family since 1919. The wine is comprised of syrah from 60-year-old vines in four vineyards: les Bessards, les Greffieux, le Méal and les Rocoules.

Some seem to have experienced a lot of bottle variation with this wine, but the one I drank had been stored perfectly. It was clear the bottle had been stored on its side for some time without having been disturbed as one (and only one) side of the bottle was permanently stained by the dark syrah nectar. The cork came out clean and was also in great shape. All in all, a tremendous experience!