Who said the world of French wine wasn’t cutthroat? More competitive than Formula One racing, older than the Pyramids, when it comes to business, there is no mercy between vineyards. Founded in 1808 by the Calvet family, Hermitage M. Chapoutier is the perfect example that far from being the jovial personages the media would have us believe, winemakers are ruthless.

The Chapoutier family took the reins of the ex-Maison Calvet in 1855 so that they could concentrate on their budding negociant business in Bordeaux. A long series of generations with names all beginning with M (Marcus, Max, Michel, Marc) followed, with Michel Chapoutier and his brother Marc taking over control of the Chapoutier family estate in the very late 1980s. Michel achieved this by driving his father out of the family business. Marc then mysteriously faded from view leaving Michel in sole charge of the estate. Unsurprisingly his actions did not curry much favour for Michel Chapoutier in the French wine world, or indeed his family.

Since then, the Chapoutier firm, which was in grave peril, has been transformed beyond recognition. Adopting a biodynamic farming approach long before it was fashionable, Chapoutier immediately lowered yields. Under his steerage Chapoutier wines grew from a 550,000 annual bottle production to 7,000,000, by purchasing parcels in other reputed French wine regions, notably Chateauneuf du Pape (the Chapoutier name can be found on bottles from Alsace, Roussillon and Australia). His children are surely being groomed to join the family business - Maxime is studying oenology in Melbourne while Mathilde is studying Mandarin in Beijing (we suspect Asian exports of Chapoutier to expand very soon). He also owns a wine import business as he feels he needs to “combat French wine chauvinism”.

Michel Chapoutier claims he suggested to Philippe Jaboulet in the early 1990s (long before the Frey family took over Paul Jaboulet Aîné) that they should swap some of the Jaboulet vines in the highly regarded Méal vineyard for some of Chapoutier's vines in L'Ermite. “Philippe Jaboulet refused because he said our Ermite vines were too young!” Chapoutier says. Out of spite, Chapoutier then created the magnificent single vineyard L'Ermite. Simply a magnificent Rhone Valley white wine, the 2017 vintage was released in April 2018 at €339 a bottle. By December 2018 that price had risen to over €400. Investors take note: the impossibly perfect 2013 increased in value by over 100% between May 2017 and March 2019.