Paul Jaboulet Aine
Domaine de Thalabert
Crozes-Hermitage
2015

The producer

One of the oldest houses in the Northern Rhone Valley, Jaboulet developed fame for their Hermitage, led by the legendary cuvee ‘La Chapelle’ – of special note is the amazing 1961 vintage. Founded in the Tain l’Hermitage town, by Antoine Jaboulet, in 1834, the domaine has, over the years, expanded from Hermitage to today also include vineyards in other parts of the Rhone Valley, including Crozes-Hermitage, Cornas, and Cote Rotie.

After the ever-charming Gerard Jaboulet passed away in 1997 the company lost its way somewhat until being sold to Jean-Jacques (who made his fortune in real estate and experience of running estates in Champagne, Burgundy, and Bordeaux) in 2005. The first change was in the vineyards with the slow but deliberate conversion to organic then biodynamic principles. The Jaboulet estate is now back in wondrous form, once again producing powerful and elegant wines, including Cornas estate ‘Domaine de Saint Pierre’. Domaine de Thalabert, in Crozes-Hermritage was the first vineyard the Jaboulet family purchased in 1834. And to this day a high proportion of very old vines can be found on the 40 hectares.

The wine

Domaine de Thalabert has some of the oldest Syrah vineyards in Northern Rhone, which today are farmed according to biodynamic principles. The land is meticulously cared for and in the cellar, purity and terroir expression takes the front seat in these elegant and concentrated red wines, which are without a doubt some of the most pleasurable and greatest value wines of the region.

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.