2012 Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Hermitage Blanc, Rhone, France 1.5L

We started off the tasting going through the individual components of his 2012 Hermitage Blanc. Favoring slow fermentations for his whites to maintain freshness, Jean-Louis's whites always stress texture and richness while staying gorgeously focused and pure. All of the individual plots showed serious richness and depth, yet held onto the purity and suppleness of the vintage. Licorice, flower oil, honey, apricot and peach were found in all of the samples to varying degrees and it should wind up being a mid- to upper-90s scoring white that will evolve for decades.