Paul Jaboulet Aîné

From Tain l'Hermitage to the world: almost two centuries of family history

1834 Antoine Jaboulet laid the foundation for one of the oldest and most influential wineries in the Rhône Valley in Tain l'Hermitage. On the steep slopes of the Hermitage hill, he began to cultivate vineyards that his sons Paul and Henri later expanded – with Paul eventually giving the house his name. For generations, the Maison remained in family hands: Louis Jaboulet, who ran the winery from 1935 to 1977, and his son Gérard, who drove the international reputation of the house until his death in 1997, are considered the architects of the golden era. In 1961, Hermitage La Chapelle was produced, a wine that is still considered one of the iconic wines of the 20th century. In 2006, the Franco-Swiss Frey family took over the house – after more than 170 years in Jaboulet ownership. Jean-Jacques Frey, already anchored in Bordeaux and Champagne, handed over the management immediately to his daughter Caroline.

Caroline Frey and the return to the vitality of the soil

Caroline Frey, oenologist and winemaker, studied at the University of Bordeaux and started her career managing Château La Lagune in the Haut-Médoc. When she took over responsibility for Jaboulet in 2006, she set a clear course from the beginning: the complete restructuring of vineyard management towards ecological and biodynamic farming. In 2016, all vineyards were officially recognized as organic certified (AB) – a process that required over a decade of consistent conversion work. Frey's conviction: Living, water-retentive soils with high biodiversity are the prerequisite for precise, profound wines. This also includes planting trees and hedges in the vineyard as well as preserving forest areas on the Domaine grounds. At the same time, the production volume of La Chapelle was significantly reduced to sharpen the selection. Under the Frey aegis, international critics rehabilitated the house after a weak phase in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Syrah, Marsanne, granite, and loess: what holds the range together

The Domaine has more than 100 hectares of vineyards, distributed across the most important appellations of the northern Rhône Valley – Hermitage, Crozes-Hermitage, Cornas, Côte-Rôtie, and Saint-Joseph – supplemented by locations in the southern Rhône. In the northern part, Syrah dominates the red wines, while Marsanne, Roussanne, and Viognier characterize the white wines. The lead cuvée Hermitage La Chapelle – named after the small chapel of Saint Christopher, which has belonged to the house since 1919 – draws from several locations on the Hermitage hill, including Le Méal, Bessards, Greffieux, and Rocoules. In the Vinoscout range, you will find the entire spectrum: from the elegant minerality of the Crozes-Hermitage white wines made from Marsanne to the structured depth of the Côte-Rôtie locations and the meaty density of a Cornas. The wines are connected by a stylistic feature that has become even clearer since the conversion to organic farming: terroir precision instead of flattery, tension instead of fullness for the sake of fullness.