Feel That

Wines that touch more than the heart.

Maybe eighteen years ago when I was attending Rendezvous France, I met with the sales manager of Chapoutier Wines to set up a visit to the winery, she handed me her card which was in Braille. It was a surprise and I mentioned it and she just merely smiled. It was a first for me and I did not understand the significance of it, but I did not forget it.

Shortly thereafter, I traveled through the Rhone Valley sailing down the Rhone River; one of France’s great wine thoroughfares, flowing from the granite hills of the north to the sunbaked plains further south. The region's strong reputation for its powerful red wines was spotlighted in an advertising campaign “Think Red, Think Côtes du Rhône.”  

It is along this river that one is greeted by a large sign of the wine estate of Chapoutier at the water’s edge. I had the pleasure of going to this well-respected winery to attend one of their monthly Saturday wine classes. At that time, I did learn and understand significance, as the story was eventually told.

Let’s start by saying that even in Roman times this area was cultivating vines. And that both Louis’ XIII and XIV were drinking wines of Hermitage at the court of Versailles. But in 1808 in the village of Tain L’Hermitage on the eastern bank of the northern Rhone emerges the Maison de Chapoutier tracing its origins back to the company Calvet et Compagnie. Over the next century, it evolved through several key phases until 1879 when a Chapoutier took over. Through the generations since it has grown to be a top world-wide producer and distributor of quality wines.

It is their top Hermitage wines, exceptional powerful, and age-worthy Syrahs and their whites from Marsanne, that receive the most attention and accolades. Michel Chapoutier’s estate-bottled luxury single parcel releases are famed. Examples are the White Hermitage Chante-Alouette, a red called Hermitage La Sizeranne, a Chateauneuf du Pape La Bernadine and one that you will probably find at your local wine merchant, called Crozes-Hermitage Les Meysonnieres.

These are wines produced from grapes grown on extremely old vines; ranging from 50 to 90 years old, they show microscopic yields and are aged in 100% new oak barrels. Chapoutier also produces wines from Condrieu, St Joseph, Crozes-Hermitage, Cornas, Cote Rotie, in the Northern Rhone, and Chateauneuf du Pape in the Southern Rhone. Some of Chapoutier portfolio wines are produced in other areas of France, also Spain, Portugal and Victoria, Australia (1997) that are considered to have significantly increased in quality since Michel Chapoutier took charge in 1985.  Quality based upon maximizing the concept of Terroir is the one thing that Michel will not compromise, and it seems to be a key to his very successful program. 

Wine lovers not only respect the uncompromising ways of Michel Chapoutier with organic, bio-dynamic and single grape focus, but they love that his humanity in creating the very first Braille labels for all his wines. In 1996 the project began and was the very first in the industry.

In 1993, when Michel was only 29 years old, his job at the winery was to be the winemaker. After work one evening he turned on the TV to watch an interview with his friend, the musician Gilbert Montagnin. Gilbert, who is blind, was talking about the experience of buying wine, explaining that he never felt comfortable going into a wine shop because he was not sure which wine he was picking up. Therefore, in order for him to take part in the simple pleasure of buying wine, he would always have to be accompanied by a companion who was able to describe the wines he was choosing.

Chapoutier knew that his friend was a big fan of his Cotes-du-Rhone and he did not like the idea that it was uncomfortable for him to seek it out. He decided to look into whether his old printing machine could actually print their labels, to allow visually impaired people to easily access the characteristics of the wine. And not only that but one of his famous single plots on the granite hill of Hermitage was called Sizeranne which he had bought after much negotiating from Maurice de la Sizeranne.

Sizeranne was born in Tain, the same hometown of Chapoutier, the child of a vigneron. While playing during his youth he was injured, and this cost him his vision at the age of nine. During his lifetime he influenced the practice of communication via Braille immeasurably through his invention of an abbreviated Braille system. To Chapoutier, it made sense to honor de la Sizeranne with the adoption of Braille on every label.

At the time, the prospect of a Braille label seemed extraordinarily expensive. In an act of innovation, Michel Chapoutier repurposed a Heidelberg printing press in such a fashion that glue filled in holes and made a functional braille label. It was cheap, effective, and sustainable – a decades-old, out-of-use press found a new function.

As I sit with an open bottle of Chapoutier Hermitage Monier de La Sizeranne, it will set you back $130 for 2018 - worth it? Absolutely!! But even better is to run your fingers over the label and know that someone with limited sight can read a label and make their own choices is definitely something I want to support. Sante!