JL Chave Clos Florentin. St. Joseph. 2022.
The moment this hit the glass you know it’s over. In baseball, it’s like when the ball is hit so goddamn hard, the outfielder doesn’t even move. Gorgeous black fruit, with violet, iron, cold granite after rain, extinguished woodsmoke. Game stew. It’s winter and you’re nowhere near a city. Was that kalamata olive really there or did I hallucinate it? The bouquet is a whole sensory story and it has your attention immediately.
St. Joseph doesn't get the flowers it deserves. Hermitage is the north Rhone's headliner, Cote-Rotie gets the cult status, Cornas gets the rugged reputation. St. Joseph is somehow still fighting to realize its potential despite being capable of genuinely transcendent Syrah.
Part of it is scale. Big appellation, wide quality range. You have to find the good ones.
Clos Florentin is a monopole – JL Chave's parcel entirely. Granite subsoil, steep exposure, farmed with the kind of attention you only bring to a site you actually believe in. They bought it in 2009 and for the first six vintages blended it into their Estate St. Joseph before separating it out into its own bottling.
The 2022 was warm and generous across the northern Rhone, but the wines are better balanced than the heat suggests. Already open, already expressive – crushed black pepper, smoked meat fat, dark plum, a fine linear tannin structure running through the wine like a seam, holding everything in place while it moves. This is Chave-level wine, and really couldn’t be more distinct from Gonon. Objectively this is probably a better wine than Gonon, with the understanding that it doesn’t hit those wild, brambly Syrah notes that are becoming harder and harder to find.
I’m drinking this and thinking, why did they even make this wine? It largely undercuts the need to have Hermitage, ever. Hermitage becomes an edge-case. This has the depth, the absurd micro-detailing. It’s just less….thick?
Yes, Chave Hermitage with 20+ years of age on it is immaculate, Savile Row stuff. But at 5, 10, 15 years? I’d rather have this every time.
Hopefully useful information:
US Importer: Grand Cru Selections, Shiverick, Bourquet and others
Price at time of posting:
US: $149-$195
UK: No current listings
EU: 246 Euros
AUS: No current listings
by Potion_Collector
1 Comment
Great notes!