Chapoutier Crozes-Hermitage AOC Les Meysonniers 2021

The winery of M. Chapoutier humbly started as ‘Calvet et Compagnie’ in the Rue de l’Hermitage in Tain back in 1808. After swapping a few hands over a century, its winery was built near Hermitage hill in 1929. The winery dedicates much of its years perfecting wines of Northern Rhône. In the last a few decades, the wine business of M. Chapoutier extended also into Southern France and Australia.

Crozes-Hermitage AOC was created in 1937. It is now the largest of Northern Rhône appellations by production volume, occupies about 40% of all wines produced. The appellation surrounds the much famed Hermitage hill. Nearly 90% of its production are red, which is either Syrah, or Syrah with co-fermented white varieties.

Since 1990, M. Chapoutier has stepped into the goal, to strive for organic and biodynamic wines. Les Meysonniers is an EU certified organic wine.

The harvest of this wine’s fruits involves both hand and mechanical harvesting, taking care to respect the integrity of the berries. Once the fruits enter into the winery, the wine was made in concrete vats after destemming the fruit bunches. Fermentation took place with solely indigenous yeasts and moderate use of sulfur. Differs from batch to batch, but most of post winemaking maceration lasted for 3 to 4 weeks.

After the wine was made, most will go into unlined concrete vats. A small portion, around 10% in new French oak barrels for approximately 12 months.

Overall, “Les Meysonniers” is a wine with fleshy tannins, and loads of floral and black fruit notes, as well as elegance. The colour is very intense purplish red. And its aroma focus on red fruits, blackcurrant and raspberry, followed by violet centred floral aromas. Much of its palate is ample and round, finishes with stewed fruit.