2021 Ermitage Le Pavillon
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Tasting notes
Le Pavillon Rouge comes from Chapoutier’s four-hectare plot in the Bessards vineyard on Hermitage. The wine has distinct, mineral, petrichor aromas that mingle with toasted spice notes from top-quality oak. The palate is beautifully silky and the tannins have real finesse. There is a lovely blend of fresh black cherry and forest fruit, cured meat and grilled herbal notes. This less solar vintage really allows for a full, complex spectrum of flavours to flourish. The wine finishes as it starts, with beautiful, stony, bloody, iodine, mineral tones backed by a lovely saline freshness.
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Alistair Cooper MW, jancisrobinson.com
Jeb Dunnuck
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Chapoutier's 2021 Ermitage le Pavillon features scents of crushed stone, cedar shavings and red raspberries on the nose. A top-notch effort from a challenging vintage, it's medium to full-bodied, quite taut and firm in the mouth but ripe and silky on the finish.
Coming mostly from the east side of the Bessards lieu-dit, just under the chapel, the 2021 Ermitage Le Pavillon is in the running for the red of the vintage. Sporting a healthy purple hue as well as gorgeous aromatics of pure cassis, spring flowers, graphite, and ground pepper, it hits the palate with medium-bodied richness, a balanced, elegant mouthfeel, ripe, fine-grained tannins, and a classy, pure, layered style that's already just about impossible to resist. It's not going to rival a great vintage of this cuvée, but it has classic Hermitage character and is incredibly satisfying. Give bottles 3-4 years and enjoy over the following 15-20 years. This was another fabulous tasting with Michel Chapoutier and his team, and it continues to be one of the highlight tastings I do in a year. The portfolio is massive, so there’s certainly something in here for everyone. Looking at the 2021s, I was able to retaste a handful of the flagship whites, and these appear to have shut down slightly. I wouldn’t touch bottles for another 3-5 years. The reds are leaner and focused, but balanced, and certainly impeccably made. However, the 2022s continue to trend here, starting around 2017 or 2018, toward fresher, lighter wines, both with the reds and whites. In addition, they’re all experimenting with whole cluster fermentations, which works beautifully in the wines I was able to taste.
The concentrated 2021 Ermitage Le Pavillon uses grapes grown on the granitic soils of the Les Bessards lieu-dit. Swishing the glass unlocks an alluring perfume of pencil shavings, black cherry, blackberry, crushed violets, cedar and vanilla. Iodine elements complement the complex aromatic profile. Medium to full in body, polished and concentrated, the 2021 is a distinctively powerful rendition considering the challenging growing season. It finishes with excellent drive.