Vin de Paille
⏳ Drinking Window
2020 - 2060
🍽️ Food & Wine Pairings
Blue cheese, foie gras, apricot tart
✨ Technical Specifications
M. Chapoutier's Hermitage Vin de Paille is a legendary sweet nectar that revives an ancient, painstaking Rhone tradition. Crafted only in exceptional vintages, this rare straw wine is made from Marsanne grapes harvested at peak ripeness. The grapes are then laid out on traditional straw mats for up to two months, allowing the autumn breezes to dehydrate the berries and concentrate their natural sugars, acids, and flavors. The resulting juice is incredibly rich, undergoing a slow, natural fermentation and extensive aging in oak casks. This golden-amber wine offers an extraordinary sensory journey of dried apricots, honey, toasted nuts, and exotic spices, balanced by a vibrant, life-giving acidity that preserves its freshness over decades.
🍾 About the Producer
Established in 1808 in Tain-l'Hermitage, Maison M. Chapoutier was transformed into a global benchmark for terroir-driven viticulture after Michel Chapoutier took charge in 1990. Operating on the motto 'Fac & Spera' (Do and Hope), the estate became an early, outspoken pioneer of biodynamic farming in 1991 across its extensive estate vineyards. Rooted along the granite terraces, fluvioglacial alluvial soils, and limestone outcrops of the northern and southern Rhône Valley, Chapoutier crafts transparent, single-vineyard bottlings (sélections parcellaires) alongside international ventures in regions like Portugal's Douro Valley. Winemaking favors indigenous yeasts, gentle extraction, and minimal intervention to preserve purity of origin, often eschewing new wood in favor of neutral oak casks or concrete vats. Benchmark cuvées—famed for their tactile Braille labeling introduced in 1994—include Hermitage icons such as Le Méal Blanc, De l'Orée, Les Greffieux, and Côte-Rôtie's La Mordorée, epitomizing tension, minerality, and structural longevity.
🍇 Grapes
100% Marsanne
🍷 ABV
14-15%