Sterling Wine Auctions Australia

A real sleeper selection from Chapoutier is his excellent, possibly outstanding 2005 Chateau des Estubliers. This is a wine with considerable Grenache, and of course, it comes from an area best known for superb black truffles. The wine has terrific fruit, loads of licorice, black currant, and cherry notes intermixed with some earth and spice box. It is ripe, medium-bodied, and filled with personality and character. I actually thought it tasted as good as Chapoutier's more expensive 2005 Chateauneuf du Pape La Bernardine. Drink it over the next 4-5 years.

The great terroiriste and biodynamic farmer of the northern Rhone, Michel Chapoutier, continues to display impressive talent for turning out strong wines from the southern Rhone even though his undeniable strengths are his single-vineyard wines from the north.

Another wine is the 2006 Les Granges de Mirabel, which is from the l'Ardeche. This comes from volcanic soils and is an inexpensive Viognier that could easily pass for a Condrieu in a blind tasting.

With twenty vintages under his belt, Michel Chapoutier and his impressive winemaking staff go from strength to strength. These are among the world's greatest wines, especially the single vineyard wines, many of which will last 50 or more years. Chapoutier thinks 2006 is one of the very finest vintages in the northern Rhone for white wines (and I don't see any reason to disagree). The naturally high acidity and a summer season with no brutal heat waves allowed the wines to maintain their acidity while at the same time gaining flavor intensity. I have always had the feeling that despite his prodigious ability to make profound red wines, Michel Chapoutier gets a greater thrill from his white wine portfolio than from his impressive reds. . The single vineyard wines from Chapoutier are wines of super concentration, and are made from what are historically tiny yields. Along with Chaves' white Hermitage and a handful of other Rhone whites, these are potentially the longest-lived and most profound whites being produced there. From the granite hillsides of St.-Joseph, Michel Chapoutier makes by far the appellation's finest white, and one might argue, red as well.