A Rhone Wine From the Chapel and Breaking Tradition in the Wachau: Weekly Tasting Report (May 31-June 6)

After spending a few weeks earlier this spring walking through the vineyards of the Rhone Valley with Senior Editor Stuart Pigott, Tasting Manager Kevin Davy tasted a few dozen more offerings from the region in our Hong Kong office, including our highest-scoring wine this week.

The Paul Jaboulet Aîné Hermitage La Chapelle 2016 is a cuvee of wines from various parts of the Hill of Hermitage with Le Meal forming the base. The chapel that sits atop the hill gives the wine its name. The 2016 vintage delivered a dark and profound wine with great focus, and it showcases the harmony and balance that can sometimes be missing in the more overly generous wines from Hermitage.

La Chapelle 2016 shows that it’s possible to produce refined wines from powerful terroirs. And it's a purer expression of Hermitage before the more muscular and concentrated 2018, ’19 and ’20 vintages. Alcohol levels soared in these years, in some cases to over 15 percent.

Fortunately, Hermitage wines got back on track with the cooler 2021 vintage, as Stuart mentioned in his recent report on Rhone. Wines returned to the lower alcohol levels they were at in 2016 and 2017.

Stuart, meanwhile, was tasting some great dry whites this past week from a new producer in Austria’s most famous wine region, the Wachau in the Danube Valley.

Two were stunners. Stuart found the Domaene Roland Chan Riesling Wachau Ried Klaus Smaragd 2021 as pristine and refreshing as a mountain stream, with intense wet stone minerality. Just a whisker behind it was the rich and concentrated Domaene Roland Chan Riesling Wachau Ried Achleiten Smaragd 2021, with aromas of peach, Amalfi lemon and wild rose. They are exactly what we expect from these two legendary vineyard sites of the commune of Weissenkirchen, the Klaus and Achleiten.

Stuart regards the Wachau as Austria’s most traditional wine region, and new wineries there are a complete exception to the rule, especially ones started by "outsiders" like Roland Muksch and Sharon Chan.

Muksch was born in Austria and met his British wife, Chan, while studying at Oxford University in England. They lived and worked for many years in Hong Kong and are now based in Singapore. He works for LGT Private Bank and she is the head of Johnson & Johnson’s JLABS Asia-Pacific. Of course, they are big wine fans, and Muksch is currently studying to become a Master of Wine.

Together they purchased a house in the Wachau in 2013, then their first vineyards in 2017, making their first wines the following year. Two local Wachau people do most of the work. Markus Skopek manages the 2.4-hectare terraced vineyards, which are so steep that most of the work there must be done by hand. And Christoph Donabaum is responsible for the cellar.

This situation is unique in the Danube Valley and the whole of Austria, where local family winemaking traditions run deep. The same can be said for the label that features the traditional Chinese character for "Chan," plus traditional Chinese symbols representing the birth years of family members. However, with the 2021 vintage the Domaene Roland Chan team has proved that this eccentric new winery can play in the big leagues.

BUBBLIES AND A BRUJO IN HONG KONG

We also tasted a selection of Champagne Gosset’s latest releases in Hong Kong. Gosset, one of the oldest houses in Champagne, was established in 1584 and has longstanding relationships with growers across the Montagne de Reims and Cotes des Blancs, where they source most of their grapes, mostly premier and grand cru. The latest release of their flagship cuvee Celebris, a blend of 54 percent chardonnay and 46 percent pinot noir, is from the cool 2008 vintage, one of the most heralded in Champagne this century.

Like the rest of their wines (including their non-vintage grand rosé, grande reserve and grand blanc de blancs in the notes below), it was made with zero malolactic fermentation to maintain purity and brightness. This, together with 100 percent stainless steel fermentation and low dosage (less than 5g/L), has resulted in a laser-focused, concise wine – clear and structured with tight layers and tight bubbles, which will be one for the cellar.

Another top discovery in our Hong Kong tastings was the Alto Horizonte Garnacha Sierra de Gredos El Cerro Brujo Viñas Viejas de Ávila 2020. It’s an impressive and highly drinkable garnacha that oozes racy, red berry fruit to go along with an attractive reductive note and white pepper accent. Senior Editor Zekun Shuai raved about the delicacy and etherealness of this wine, which delivers grapefruit, pomegranate, thyme and Mediterranean spices to the nose with a taut and expressive palate.

The clarity and the nervy freshness of this infusion-style garnacha make it seem effortless, but the small production of just 768 bottles means it will hardly quench everyone’s thirst despite its serious drinkability.

The wine comes from a small, old-vine garnacha plot in the elevated village of Navatalgordo of Avila first planted in 1929. In Spain, this represents one of the highest areas for garnacha and, thus, one of the coolest, too. The size of the plot used for El Cerro Brujo is barely half a hectare on the sandy granite soils found in Cebreros, which brings mineral tension and tautness to the palate. The wine was fermented with whole bunches with minimal extraction before being aged in used 500-liter puncheons and large demijohns.

The winemaker behind the wine, Aurelio Garcia Herraiz, also has a project with his wife, Mikaela Rubio, that focuses on fine-tuning bobal. We have mentioned these in previous Weekly Tasting Reports, and there are a few additional Mikaela bobal wines in the tasting notes below.

Other high-scoring wines from Spain this week included some consistent deliveries of rare and aged sherries from Gonzalez Byass. At the top was the Gonzalez Byass Jerez Del Duque Vinum Optimum Rare Signatum Amontillado 30 Años NV, a tangy, intense yet nuanced amontillado with tons of flavor and salinity. The Adega Damm Amandi winery from Ribeira Sacra also added some juicy and punchy mencias to this report.

– Kevin Davy, Stuart Pigott, Zekun Shuai and Claire Nesbitt contributed reporting.

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated during the past week by James Suckling and the other tasters at JamesSuckling.com. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. Some will be included in upcoming tasting reports.

Note: You can sort the wines below by country, vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.