Wines of the Rhône

Varogne

Far more often than the name of a quartier, you will find on a good bottle of Hermitage a supplementary, private appellation belonging to one shipper. Thus Jaboulet Aine markets an Hermitage La Chapelle, though his La Chapelle vineyard is part of the quartier of L'Hermite, and Messrs. Chapoutier put out an Hermitage-Chante-Alouette, though their property of Chante-Alouette is in the quartier of Le Meal. This is no reflection on the quality of either wine, for each is excellent.

The red grape of Hermitage is our friend, the Syrah, but white Hermitage is the product of two grapes, the Roussanne and Marsanne, in most cases grown and harvested together. This combination, depending on methods of picking and vinification, produces two altogether distinctive but totally different wines, one Known as Hermitage Blanc and the other as Vin de Paille. The latter, which we rarely see in this country, is a luscious, heavy, golden wine, sweet as a Chateau Yquem; it is made from grapes that are picked when ripe and them laid on straw mats (whence the name paille or straw) for two months or better before pressing.

The conventional white Hermitage, on the other hand, is dry, extraordinarily full-bodied, high in alcohol, and possesses at its best a power and depth of flavor which are almost overwhelming. It is no wine to drink with lunch in summer, or with mountain trout, or with filet of sole; give it the Provencal dishes that it goes with, and there is hardly a better white wine in France.

Red Hermitage nevertheless deserves, I think, a higher place than its white sister. It doubtless used to be better than it is today, before the trade began insisting on wines that could be carried home and drunk the same evening; for all Rhone wines throw a heavy sediment, and almost all of them are now decanted and rebottled before shipment—a grave injustice to a fine vintage and a sure way to shorten its life.

One of the glories of an old Hermitage is its color, which at least one German writer has called “berrlich dunkles Rot,” and which Mr. Saintsbury, with considerably more grace, has described as brown but “flooded with such a sanguine as altogether transfigured it.” Like many of the wines of warmer countries (Italian Barolo, the Riojas of Spain, and most of our native Cabernets and Pinot Noirs), Hermitage has less bouquet than the Cote d'Or Burgundies and the Medoc clarets, and this is perhaps its only weakness, for in texture it is the purest satin and in flavor a very great wine indeed.

Crozes-Hermitage

Back of the main Hermitage hill, in the broken country east of the Rhone, there are a good many small vineyards which produce what is, in the words of a jury of wine-tasters a hundred years ago, “if not a brother, at least a first cousin of Hermitage itself.” Generally such wines, made from the Syrah or from the Roussanne and Marsanne grapes, used to be sold as “Crozes” by more scrupulous wine merchants, but as “Hermitage” by the others. A new legal appellation has been created, however—since 1938 they all go to market honorably as Crozes-Hermitage, and they are official first cousins now in name, as well as in quality and character and flavor.