The first thing that the new owners did was cut back on the selections available in 2004, which was a difficult vintage. They decided to completely declassify the most famous wine of the house, the Hermitage La Chapelle, offering a good wine called Hermitage La Petite Chapelle, essentially a second wine. This wine has a deep ruby/purple color with notes of herbs and red fruits, zesty acidity, and a moderate finish. Any similarity to La Chapelle is largely impossible to recognize.
I fully expect quality will dramatically soar at Jaboulet (just as it has at Chateau La Lagune in Bordeaux) and that these transitional vintages, particularly the mediocre 2004s which were not made by the new owners, and the good but hardly inspiring 2005s, will be lost memories when the new ownership team has the next fine vintage in the northern Rhone.
As I reported last year, everything is in transition at Paul Jaboulet-Aine. This old family firm, founded in the early 1800s, was sold to the Frey family, who are major investors in the Billecart-Salmon Champagne house and proprietors of the well-known Chateau La Lagune in the southern Medoc. The entire winemaking operation is undergoing massive changes as the Jaboulet wines have had a lackluster as well as irregular track record after the death of Gerard Jaboulet in 1997.
Importer: Frederick Wildman, New York, NY; tel. (212) 355-0700
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