Ermitage Le Pavillon 1989 Chapoutier 75cl / 13.5%

A bottle of 1989 Ermitage Le Pavillon from producer Michel Chapoutier, from biodynamically grown fruit in the north of the Rhone valley on one of France's steepest vineyards.

'The 1989 Le Pavilion is a prodigious wine. Made from yields of 14 hectoliters per hectare, this parcel of old vines (averaging 70-80 years of age) has produced an opaque black/purple-colored wine, with a hauntingly stunning bouquet of violets, cassis, minerals, and new oak. In the mouth, the similarity in texture, richness, and perfect balance to the compelling 1986 Mouton-Rothschild is striking, only this wine is richer and longer. This extraordinarily well-balanced wine will probably not be ready to drink for at least 5-10 years, but it will evolve for three decades or more. It is an enormous yet amazingly well-delineated wine. I lament the fact that there are only 600 cases of this magnificent wine. This great Hermitage was the first of a trilogy (1989, 1990, and 1991) of exquisite Le Pavillons. Drink through 2025. 100/100' Robert M.Parker Jnr., tasted 1997