Hermitage Blanc 2003, Cave de Tain
29th November 2007
One handy rule of wine drinking is to steer clear of anything from European cooperatives. Generally speaking, the words “Cantina Coop. Soc.” on an Italian label or “Cave Cooperative” on a French one are shorthand for “Evil-tasting muck, indifferently produced by lazy, ill-shaven peasants stultified by government handouts.”
And as with all rules of wine drinking, there is at least one distinguished exception. The Cave de Tain was founded in 1933 by a hundred growers from the district of Tain l’Hermitage, on the Rhône. Over the years they were joined by growers from Cornas and Saint Péray, and they later merged with another cooperative, the Cave de Saint Donat. Today the Cave de Tain has 370 members and a total vineyard area of over a thousand hectares. Such a history ought to make for industrial quantities of awful wine, but miraculously it doesn’t.
The proof is in the vin. This excellent Hermitage Blanc is made entirely from the Marsanne grape, and aged in the fashionable mixture of new oak barrels and stainless steel vats. It is a deep, greenish-gold colour, with a bouquet of peach. (Mango too, the makers claim, though I missed that one). Its taste is honeyed and slightly unctuous, with suggestions of pineapple and white melon. It is strong (14%) but offers no gratuitous bicep-flexing. It also has great length.
The makers suggest this Hermitage Blanc would go well with “foie-gras, truffle, lobster and fish in creamy sauces”. I agree with the first two suggestions, but am not sure if the wine has quite enough acidity for the last two. Those fish sauces would have to be very creamy indeed.
$35 in the US, £18 in the UK.
