Chave Hermitage 1997

Red/garnet.

Smoked breakfast sausage. Nuances of chocolate, herbs.

Linear in the mouth, acid-driven flavors of smoked sausage, wilted greens - much better than it sounds. Quite harmonious, no sense of an effort to "improve" the wine in the cellar with new oak, more extraction etc.

'97 was not a great vintage in the Northern Rhone.
Maybe that's what 500 years in one place is good for - quiet confidence.

I'd like to try this with a good duck.

$100-150?