Marc Chapoutier

“We like to think we’re the most Burgundian firm in the Rhone Valley”, exclaims Marc Chapoutier jnr, International Export Director for M. Chapoutier, in a statement he wouldn’t like to see taken literally. “Our wines are full-bodied, but elegant and not aggressive.” For the Chapoutier wines I have tasted, I agree, and welcome their arrival in Australia to bring a little sanity to the prices for premium imported table wines.

The young, effervescent Marc Chapoutier was recently in Melbourne to introduce the selection of his wines. Australia has become the forty-third country to accept M. Chapoutier wines. The importers have chosen a small range with which to tempt the Australian buyer – basically a cross-section of what the Rhone Valley is all about.

“We are concentrating on the relationship between price and quality”, says Chapoutier, “for we need to be competitive in Australia”. Hear, hear. From an $8.95 Cotes du Rhone to the top-line Hermitage at $35.00 the wines are sensibly and accessibly priced.

Marc is another of these globetrotting French who have given their lives and livers to the spreading of goodwill and wine around the drinking world. At 26 he’s married, but I doubt his wife could remember what he looks like. He estimates that he travels for 200 days each year, takes over eighty flights and covers more than 100,000 kilometres. It’s as well that he likes restaurants, for he eats at more than 300 per annum. Rita Erlich, eat your heart out. But isn’t that interesting…it would still take Marc around seven years to eat at every Melbourne restaurant even at that gargantuan rate!

M. Chapoutier jnr. is also refreshingly open-minded, especially when it comes to the subject of Australian wine, rather close to the heart of this correspondent. “My cellar is at least 10 Australian”, he says, as I fall backwards in disbelief. Is this your average French wine exec? “I love Swiss wine, especially as an aperitif. It’s light, fresh and tasty. Don’t quote me on this, but sometimes I prefer it as an aperitif to Champagne”. Don’t worry, Marc, I wouldn’t dare to.

“I also buy lots of Oregon Pinot Noir and wines from Argentina, Chile and Mexico ?!. It’s fun to surprise friends at tastings with these wines – they never know what to expect.”

It’s extraordinary and it may be a coincidence, but the only other Frenchman in a similar role I have met with such a knowledge and appreciation of wine from other countries – and indeed who would travel at least as much – is Gerard Jaboulet, the completely disarming head of the other great Rhone shipper, Paul Jaboulet Aine.

“I love tasting the food and wine of a place. Everywhere I go I meet people who make wine in which I can find something different and enjoyable.”

M. Chapoutier’s premier white is the remarkable Chante-Alouette, from the vineyard of the same name. Famous English wine man Hugh Johnson writes “Everyone should taste Chante-Alouette at ten or more years old – a revelation after most modern whites”. It is based around marsanne, with perhaps a dash or two of the closely-related roussane grape. Very rich, heavily-wooded and a bit of a mouthful while young, it settles down to become a wonderfully complex, honeyed white with characteristic viscosity and depth of flavour.

Chapoutier says that he has heard of diners returning to a restaurant at which they had enjoyed Chante-Alouette, but who couldn’t remember its name. “Was it a White Hermitage?”, they were asked. “No”, came the reply. “Then was it Chante-Alouette?”, asked the waiter, remembering the wine and giving them a way out. “Of course”.

“People just remember the name, and not where it comes from”, says M. Chapoutier jnr., “and most people like it. Last week I gave some to a Bermudan woman who had not drunk white wine for 21 years. She tried it and drank quite a lot. I’m told her husband was happy.”

Ninety percent of Hermitage is red, and is grown in big parcels. Chante-Alouette is from a steep, white vineyard, the biggest white planting on the slope of Hermitage, for usually white Hermitage is grown on the flatter vineyards at the base of the hill.

“Our marsanne becomes a very complex wine, for its roots go down through three soil types. I like the Chante-Alouette, for I always look for good balance in whites, with good acid and oak for ageing”, says Chapoutier.

It’s in their winemaking techniques that M. Chapoutier state their case, for without doubt it is here that the Chapoutier style evolves.

Chapoutier believe themselves to be the most traditional of the major Rhone producers. They harvest late – between three days and one week behind the others in the Rhone, which gives them perceptibly riper fruit and therefore the potential for more alcohol in their wines. The Rhone climate is consistent, and Marc Chapoutier’s father has told him he has
never known a bad vintage for whites.

Chapoutier are keen to maintain personality with their white winemaking, which use age-old techniques. “Without a malolactic fermentation you can’t age a white wine”, Marc Chapoutier jnr pronounces. “Otherwise they will only live for one year after transport.” I took the liberty to question this, but was charmingly reminded that M. Chapoutier had been doing it successfully for 180 years.

In their red wine production, Chapoutier make a thing out of macerating the fermenting cap of their best wines, Hermitage and Cote Rotie, by human being. Brave individuals lodge themselves between two smooth planks, dangling their feet down into the ferment, pumping their feet like a swimmer treads water.

The maceration takes a long time – juice is in contact with the skins and seeds for 18-21 days, including the fermentation, which is short and hot. The aims is to achieve wine with a high, well-integrated tannic structure.

One of the things that most intrigued me about the whole process was the use of chestnut barrels for the premium reds, made on site by their own cooper. Oak is used as a supplementary source of wood character and only 30 of the Chapoutier barrels are made from oak, Limousin and Alliers. Hope springs eternal for the Aussie stringybark!

Chapoutier explained that chestnut gives a very even wood pick-up, allowing wines to lose their young grape tannin quickly to extract the superior, softer wood tannins instead. Chestnut, he also said, produces a pronounced vanillin character in wine. Chapoutier will typically vinify, monitor the malolactic fermentation and then age their best red wines in 200 litre wood ‘pieces’ for between three to five years.

On a more modern tack, Chapoutier were the first to introduce the vinomatic autofermenter to the Rhone Valley, with their first machines arriving in 1978. These fermenters extract wonderful red wine colour quite quickly from a ferment, without a comparable extract of bitter grape tannins. As a consequence, the wines are velvet-soft and richly-coloured.

The vinomatics are used fort the red Crozes Hermitage and the Chateauneuf-du-Pape, both of which are now available in Australia. Marc Chapoutier jnr finds these softer, and possibly atypical Rhone wines very popular in warmer export climates, and even across Europe.

But basically the Chapoutier reds and whites are richer wines, able to cope with the richest food you can pair them with. Marc Chapoutier was recently delighted to witness his Chante-Alouette match a whole range of Bangkok curries especially prepared as sort of vinous test of strength. “A fifteen year-old White Hermitage easily handled them all, even the very strongest”, he beams.

It was a pleasure to meet M. Chapoutier, the man and the wine. Treat yourself to the same some time.

Tasting Notes:

M. Chapoutier Chante-Alouette 1986

This intense young wine has a medium straw-yellow colour of brilliant clarity. Its nose is honeyed, toasty and floral, almost madeirised in its development. Fleshy, muscular and soft, the palate is quite broad with a rich wood influence. The wine needs ten years or more, for it is only just beginning to reveal its qualities. Cellar it for further complexity and elegance – it will surely go the distance.


M. Chapoutier Tavel Rose 1987 15.95

This fresh young rose is a medium rose-crimson pink with a hint of orange. The nose is a little closed, but delicate, musty characters with some fresh, greenish raspberry-like fruit begin to emerge. The palate is clean and fresh, with good roundness and weight, excellent body and depth. It finishes fresh, long and slightly tart.

M. Chapoutier Chateauneuf-du-Pape 1987 17.50

This soft, approachable young red has a medium to full brick red colour. The nose is attractive and perfumed, with red berry/cherry fruit and a boiled-lolly character. Very fresh, long and light in body, the palate is quite supple and not particularly complex, showing similar fruit to the nose with a subtle oakiness. Overall it’s quite an elegant, if youngish red with pleasing fruit, well-balanced wood and a pronounced, lingering finish with soft tannins. Keep it for around three to five years.

M. Chapoutier Crozes-Hermitage La Petite Ruche 1987 14.70??

A fuller-bodied red wine, this has a medium to full red-purple colour.
Delightfully fresh, spicy and peppery shiraz fruit bursts through the nose with excellent new wood depth and character. The palate is soft and voluptuous, with mouthfilling sappy sweet strawberry cherry fruit showing great intensity at the front of the mouth. The tannins are very soft but quite pronounced. Overall the wine has excellent integration, great depth of flavour and a long, dry finish. It will develop in the bottle for at least five to eight years. Please login to post comment