M. Chapoutier Crozes-Hermitage Les Meysonniers 2022

Michel Chapoutier runs one of the largest Demeter-certified biodynamic estates in the world. Over two thousand acres, all farmed by the lunar calendar, compost teas brewed in cow horns, the full doctrine. You can tell yourself that is all nonsense or you can taste the wine. I have tasted a lot of it. The wine is not nonsense. Les Meysonniers is the entry-level Crozes-Hermitage and it is the bottle I keep handing clients who say they do not know where to start with biodynamic wine. Cracked black pepper on the nose, blueberry and violets on the palate, a smoked-meat finish that is the signature of Northern Rhône Syrah done right. Tannins are fine and serious without being heavy. It tastes alive in a way that industrial wine never does. That is not marketing. That is what a well-farmed vineyard tastes like. I opened a bottle last Friday in a cellar I just finished in Westlake. The client poured himself a glass, looked at the label, asked what Crozes-Hermitage was, and by the end of the night had ordered a case. At $22-28 this is what biodynamic wine should taste like and it costs less than dinner for two.