M. Chapoutier

The house was founded in Tain-l'Hermitage in 1808 and bought by the Chapoutier family in 1855. Michel Chapoutier took charge at the end of the 1980s, converted the vineyards to biodynamics, fully by 1995, and in 1996 began bottling the Hermitage hill parcel by parcel under the Sélections Parcellaires: L'Ermite, Le Méal, Le Pavillon and Les Greffieux in red, L'Ermite, Le Méal and De l'Orée in white.

Chapoutier holds some 26 hectares on the hill of Hermitage, the largest estate there. L'Ermite is the smallest of its climats, at the summit around the chapel, on bare granite sand. The white is Marsanne from the house's oldest vines on the hill, fermented in barrel, half aged on its lees in new oak for at least ten months and half in tank; the red is Syrah from vines of around eighty years, destemmed, macerated five to six weeks and aged fourteen to eighteen months in new casks, unfined and unfiltered. Production of L'Ermite Blanc is in the region of 150 cases a year.

The Sélections Parcellaires are released on allocation through the house's importers and move case by case once they are out. We hold full cases with documented provenance, in bond in France or in our Lisbon cellar, and source specific vintages on request.