M. Chapoutier : Le Pavillon 2011

Densely packed, with dark plum, currant paste and macerated fig fruit, offset by a zesty edge. Briary tannins stride along with the copious fruit, revealing lots of spice and bramble notes on the finish. Very dense for the vintage. Best from 2016 through 2030. 32 cases imported.

The aromas lean towards baked plums and rich dried fruit, with a clear stony, mineral seam. It’s still tightly wound, the tannins standing firm despite their fine, silky nature.

Inky ruby. Exotic, intensely perfumed scents of raspberry liqueur, floral pastilles and Asian spices, with subtle black pepper and mineral qualities emerging with aeration. Juicy, focused and pure, offering vibrant red fruit and spicecake flavors and showing impressive tension and back-end power. Clings on the finish with excellent persistence, silky tannins and an echo of exotic spices. This suave wine is surprisingly showy right now but Pierre-Henri Morel said that that was "a deception, because this one will probably age the longest of all the Ermitage cuvees parcellaires."

From 90 to 100 year old Syrah vines: strong crimson garnet, broader ochre rim lightening. Delicately smoky underlaid black forest berry fruit, a hint of liquorice, some juniper, discreet wood savouriness, dark minerality, very complex and inviting. Juicy, complex, fresh sweet cherry, fine sweetness, silky woven, supporting tannins, damp stones on the finish, great length, taut and drying, immensely youthful, almost a touch too young to show it all yet. (2025 - 2075).

The most full-bodied of the 2011s, with tannins showing characteristic graphite notes; tremendous character, but it needs time. It still won’t match the 2010, whose majestic structure is out of reach.