M. Chapoutier
Le Clos
Saint Joseph
2019

The producer

Originally founded in 1897, the modern history of the Chapoutier business begins with the arrival of 7^th generation Michel Chapoutier in 1990. He immediately converted the vineyards to biodynamics and expanded both the domaine and the negociant side of the business.

Chapoutier today owns vineyards throughout the Rhone, as well as sourcing grapes from longstanding partnerships with other growers; Chapoutier also own vineyards as far afield as Australia, Portugal and Spain. The family’s winemaking philosophy is based on the concept of terroir, always allowing the terroir to express itself the maximum. Today children Mathilde and Maxime are involved.

Saint-Joseph represents one of the great value wines of the Chapoutier range and is handled with the same care and attention to detail as their Hermitage and is given a delicate spicing from 20% new oak.

The wine

Chaputier’s Le Clos opens up with a richly black fruited and exotic nose complemented by spice and graphite minerality; the palate is generous and full with silky tannins and long finish. Fermentation takes place in small concrete vats and is followed by a long 5-week maceration, after which Le Clos is allowed to mature for around 20 months in barrels (usually 25% new).

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.