Loire notes 2.08
Melon and Chenin, some other stuffYour intrepid correspondent once again braved all the hazards of a winter trip to the Loire valley—tedious schnooks, badly tailored striped suits that are popular among young French sommeliers in training, reheated canned confit at dinner, dubious rillette sandwiches at lunch, fake baguettes at breakfast, widespread norovirus pandemics, ice-cold showers, slow diesel cars, the works. The compensation of seeing old friends, tasting the wines, and of course telling all of you about the best so you can buy the scarce ones before I remember to is plenty to motivate me out into the cold rains of an Angevin February.
It was another tricky vintage in 2007, and the winemakers all showed the effects. No lingering beach vacations last summer for most of these pallid Northerners—they were out in the rain spraying their vines, battling a great variety of fungal infections throughout the summer deluges. An accelerated spring put the vines in most spots several weeks ahead of their normal cycle by the end of a very hot April (as warm in many places as July would prove to be). But in May, the rains set in. It rained often throughout May, June, July, and the first half of August. The immature grapes retain plenty of antifungal phenolics (the molds don’t like bitter green grapes any better than you do), but the leaves are a delectable salad course for mildew, and some growers reported having to spray weekly or more to keep leaves on the vines. Those who lost this battle were sunk entirely—I was told that Guy Bossard, one of the best growers in the Muscadet, applied to the organic authorities (I presume Demeter) for permission to spray more than the usual quota of the ironically “organic” allowed copper and sulfur Bordeaux mixture, and the organic bureaucrats dithered on the question for a couple of weeks. By the time they gave him the go-ahead, his crop was gone and he has no production at all this year. And thus, presumably, next to no income. Mathieu Baudry told me that he and his father had been in Bordeaux in May and had seen the mildew in the vineyards there. Knowing that Chinon is typically a couple of weeks behind Bordeaux in maturation, they headed home and tried to keep ahead of the mildew for the rest of the summer.
It was not as dire as it could have been. Fortunately, the weather stayed cool through the rains, slowing the fungal blooms. And the warm spring gave the vines a bit of a jump on maturity. In mid-August, more or less, the sun came out, and the rest of the fall was quite nice—sunny, reasonably warm, and in good conditions for maturation of the grapes. Good conditions, that is, if there were enough leaves left on your vines to benefit from the photosynthesis. So what could have been a catastrophic vintage in the end of the day produced many good wines. People who had preserved enough foliage and who could wait a few weeks to harvest produced some very fine wines. But one person who had visited the valley in early August reported to me that there were many desperate vignerons at that time.
A few wild-ass generalizations about the wines in this vintage. Please don’t attempt to apply these deductively to the glass in front of you, but think of them as a mnemonic, or a collation of particularly memorable anecdotes, or some such. 2007 produced many rather classic Loire whites, in contrast to 2005 and 2006, which tended farther in the direction of ripeness and richness than is historically typical, although who knows what the future climate holds? It is silly to generalize about the global climate from a little patch of far-western Europe, but as I walked through the vines at Clos Roche Blanche in the cool valley of the Cher a couple of days ago in the first week of February, there were flowers blooming between the vines (Veroniques), and a few mosquitoes followed us. French warming, at any rate, seems to be real. Chikungunya may be only the first of the brave new European pathogens.
But I digress, this is not the insect-borne diseases board. The vintage also produced somewhat lean, refreshing reds that owe their structure more to acid than to tannin. They may not be big with the pointy crowd, and they may not be reds to cellar for generations, but they are in many cases quite ripe and satisfying, and their lower alcohols and more restrained structures were often quite welcome to this observer. I wasn’t personally a big fan of the 14+% alcohol whites of 2006 and sometimes 2005, nor of the rs that was left behind in the hopes of balancing those wines, nor sometimes of the hard tannins in some reds of those vintages. In 2007, we’re back to much more classic wines—“Loire wines, they’re what’s for dinner.”
So let’s consider a few perhaps representative wines. Of course, my journalistic heroism does not extend to tasting the run of the mill industrial production that dominates many AOCs in the Loire on your behalf. I’m sure that 2007 was a tough year for industrial producers as well, and that the producers of systemic fungicides probably had a banner year. Machine harvesting was probably less detrimental in 2007 than in a vintage with late rains like 2006, because many more of the grapes came in healthy. But I flag for you that my little collection of anecdotes remains quite biased towards quality producers, and also towards those practicing various forms of organic viticulture.
To begin as usual at the end of the river, a group of us visited Marc Ollivier, which is always a fantastic time. In this vintage, we had good wines, too. Marc had to do most of the vineyard work by hand, it was too wet to bring tractors into the vineyards. But he said that the weather was great after mid-August, so he had a month before he started harvest on September 13th. He had a very tough time in 2007 with Eden and Moulin de Gustaie, since those sites have more clay and consequently poorer drainage. The reduced crops are to be combined with the Pepiere, comprising about 25% of the final blend. From my tasting of that component, they will bring somewhat more apparent fruit to the mix, but the Pepiere is usually a later developer, fruit-wise. The Pepiere vintage is a very solid one, with excellent minerality, fine acid balance, resembles a slightly riper ’04 more than it does the very ripe ’05 and ’06. Marc was one of a couple of growers I heard suggest during the trip that natural yeast populations would vary significantly by vintage—a very wet summer like ’07 would give a different population than a hot, dry year like ’03.
The 2007 Clos des Briords had a nice balance of rocks and fruit, with fine length. It has less toasty/roasty skin minerality than ’03 or ’99, but it’s solid vintage that Marc thinks is “classic Briords.” Marc did only 25 hl/ha, but got 11.9% natural alcohol (CdB is never chaptalized), with 6.2 g total acid (of course he doesn't acidify). He harvested Sept 18th, 20th, and 22nd. Marc had 43 pickers this year. He sometimes ships the gang out for a day or two in the middle of harvest, which allows him to keep the gang together and paid steadily while his vineyards ripen, and also allows certain of his neighbors to have a prestigious hand-harvested cuvee.
The old-vines section of Pepiere that makes the Granite de Clisson bottling is the real deal in ’07. Mouthcoating minerality at this stage, deep and long. The old vines gave 20 hl/ha. Marc thinks it will grow to be as rich as the 2005, but will be livelier from somewhat higher acid. This was his final harvest, on September 26th, and it’s 12.2% natural. Thrilling stuff. For those of you who’ve been under your granite rock for the last couple of years, a group called “3rd wave” is organizing grower groups in particular special terroirs in the Muscadet, organizing short pruning, extended lees aging, and so on. Interestingly, hand harvest is not required, although of course Marc hand harvests all his vineyards.
Marc is always in action, and he’s let go some vineyards in ’07 and added others. All Marc’s vineyards are now within 1 km of the river on slopes. One that he’s added is in the neighboring hamlet of Chateau Thebaut, and Marc expects to make a special “Granite de Chateau Thebaut” bottling from it. He and the other owners are negotiating now on the exact specs for the wine. Marc wanted 40 hl/ha, the other growers were aghast at the loss in yield. He thinks they may end up at 45, or more likely the 47 that is typical of the other small quality groups. Marc also has 2 new ha in the Gras Mouton vineyard. He has given up a portion of Pepiere.
Marc also made delicious reds in ’07, bright and juicy, with special mention for the Granite bottling.
Some comments on older wines tasted in a vertical:
2006 CdB seems a little closed to me right now after the young wines. I might be inclined to let mine rest for a year.
2005 CdB is in a great place right now, as is the Granite de Clisson. The wine that could have been Granite de Clisson in 2006 was bottled as Pepiere since Marc didn’t have enough wine.
1999 CdB continues its evolution into a more classic wine. It’s possible that what I call the toasty/roasty minerality of this and the 2003 are not just due to a different character of sun-roasted skins, but may also reflect a different yeast population, but I can’t prove it.
The ’97 has always been an unusual beauty, with its proportion of botrytis-affected grapes. It’s showing really well today, but I think its evolution is headed towards a more prominent display of the botrytis over the other qualities of the wine, and I’m putting out the “drink in the next few years” flag on these.
Nothing beats the ’96. The ’95 is also in fine shape with a long run ahead.
’89 CdB has the grace of maturity, and a hint of caramel adds complexity. No need to hold, but no panic either. I won’t taunt you with the very old wines except to mention that we had a fine ’75, and the ’73 wasn’t as fine as last year’s bottle.
The next morning, I had my first chance to visit Luneau-Papin. M. Luneau remains an extraordinarily sunny and cheerful host. The operations could not be more different—Luneau is a large, shiny, purpose-built winery, and is kept in a state of high polish. Luneau was a pioneer in the region for bottlings by terroir, and spoke at length about the different parcels. He notes as a general matter that the soils of the Loire valley become less calcareous after Angers, heading more in the direction of schists, granites, and the like. Like Marc, Luneau does a hand-harvest with a triage in the vineyard, uses whole clusters in a soft pneumatic press, with aging in underground vats at 12-13*C.
I won’t go through all the wines, since many of them will find destinations that will be out of reach of most of you.
I’ll mention that Clos des Allees is more of a Florida Jim Muscadet than a Luca Muscadet in 2007. It came in at 11.2 natural and was chaptalized to 12*. Some among us found it just a little weighty in consequence, but it’s got a ways to go before it hits the market.
I am compelled by my nondisclosure agreement to do no more than mention that Luneau is in the process of acquiring a new vineyard with an unusual soil geology for the region, but since the deal is not yet done, they don’t want any of you trying to dive headfirst into the bidding and I can say no more at this time.
The Pierre Blanche (pure schist, 60 y.o. vines, 25-30 hl/ha in ’07) is more powerful at 11.8 natural, but this is never quite my favorite from these guys.
They had frost in Clos de Poyet last spring, cutting yields to 25-30 hl/ha. Interestingly, the frost affected this old selection-massale vineyard vine by vine. Certain vines were either more advanced in their cycle and thus vulnerable, or were more resistant and unaffected. This wine has an interesting mineral grip to it that has a different texture than you get from granite sites. They may not keep this for extended lees maturation, but I like it quite a bit, with its yellowfruits on top of a rocky base. A bit of a small still life.
The bit of granite in the Claretieres site becomes evident in a change of minerality on the next wine. This usually finds its way into the L d’Or, but is also bottled sometimes under its own name for small cavistes in France who want a differentiated product from them. It has a pleasing grapefruit pith quality, and should be quite interesting.
The schist site Clos des Noelles has 60 y.o. vines, and is also the subject of “3rd wave” bottlings as many of you know quite well. The “3rd wave” crew specifies 18 months of lees aging, but Luneau does 30. He did 35 hl/ha, although the 3rd wave standard is 47 and the AOC allows 55. The wine will be released in late 2010. I wonder if it might not be just a mite shy in the acid department, but we’ll see.
Luneau had some interesting general comments on economic conditions in the Muscadet. Only 20% of the harvest is bottled by producers, the rest goes to negoce. A planted vineyard in a good site on a good slope with old vines, perhaps imperfectly trellised sells currently for €8000, a good index of the sorry state of the area.
We tasted some older wines, and I won’t be universal, but some thoughts:
I didn’t love the ’03 Noelles Excelsior—the toasty/roasty ’03 thing is apparent here, and the wine is excellent for 2003, but it’s a little low in acid and I don’t need it. YMMV.
The ’02, OTOH, is excellent wine, more evolved and 2* from the aging and lees, savory with nice balance and remarkable length. It’s fully open for business.
The ’01 is leaner, “plus classique,”, showing very well indeed, still rich and long. The wine to serve if you have Florida Jim and Luca to the same dinner.
The ’99 L d’Or is ripe, rich, has the roasty skin thing, but it’s well integrated into a round, ripe, mineral wine. Will the ’03 head this direction?
The aroma from the ’97 L d’Or jumps out of the glass and grabs you by the schnoz, it’s ripe and sweet, delicious zippy balance and length. Woo woo.
The ’95 is less OTT than the ripe ’97, but it has solid bright acidity, classic and mineral, long and satisfying.
But the ’76 from magnum…I may have mentioned this before, but it was 6 years sur lie and it is insanely good. Luneau’s oenologist at the time told him that his lees were overripe and would add nothing to the wine. He thought they were clean and healthy and thought he’d experiment with longer aging. Good idea, Pierre. The wine has layer after layer of honeyed maturity, is still fresh, and goes forever. This is the wine to serve if you have me to dinner.
For the sake of completeness, I’ll note here that I tasted with Jo Landron at the Salon, but that it was at the very end of a long day and I mistrust myself. I really liked ’05, ’02, and ‘00 Fief du Breil, but I wasn’t enamored of his ‘07s or ‘06s. I wouldn’t take that view too much to heart.
I will comment briefly on some older wines that were served at a lunch with some growers, but I will try to draw conclusions rather than your attention to specific bottles, since most of them are not likely to be items of commerce. That’s a zeugma in the last sentence, btw. The lunch included spectacular becasses, which are either woodcocks or woodchucks depending on who you ask. In any case, their legs were confited and their breasts roasted, and they had a wonderful woodsy gaminess about them. Marc shot each one personally for our delectation.
If you have any ’98 L’Arpen from CRB in the cellar, it’s in a fabulous texture. A blend of the lost vines of menu pineau and chenin blanc at CRB, it’s got great crunchy minerality, good acid. “Zowie” reads my note.
Cazin brought an ’84 Cour-Cheverny, from a difficult vintage (frost in the spring, rain at harvest, locusts, the works). It has a wonderful honeyed old romo nose and a crazy mineral acidic finish. It is not an easy wine even now, but it remains extremely interesting. The ’89 is not as aromatically expressive as the ’84, but it is really nice and earthy, with less acid and it’s dry, with <5g rs. The ’90 was the first Cuvee Renaissance, with 15 g rs, and it’s got much better balance along with delcious aromatics.
Pinon brought a wine from a somewhat indifferent vintage, the ’93 Tradition. It was cool but dry, and they had to wait for maturity. Pinon said it was his highest acid vintage ever, but with age it’s showing really well, in full mature blossom. Its companion moelleux is a wonder of passerillage sweetness with zippy acidity. Still quite young, you shouldn’t open any that you might have.
Filliatreu brought the same wine under screwcap and cork, a very interesting comparison. The red Cabernet Franc was much more primary and fruity under screwcap, and more complex and muted under cork. .sasha greatly preferred the cork, but I think Filliatreau is shooting for more fruit, so I’ll let them fight it out.
I consumed my last Baudry ’89 Grezeaux a couple of years ago, but if you have magnums, it’s still going strong. Fully resolved, I’d drink up, but it’s showing great aromatic complexity. The ’90 ‘Signature’ (essentially Croix Boissee) is fantastic, with clean somewhat rectilinear complexity, surprisingly tannic still in the midpalate and finish. It shows quite young. Baudry feels their wines at home are more tannic than when he tastes them out and about.
What to serve with cheese? Several answers are proffered: ’96 Clos des Briords, ’89 Pinon cuvee botrytis, ’89 Cazin Cour-Cheverny, ’88 Clos des Briords, ’64 Pinon tradition. The correct answer is all or any of the above. I’ve described those wines elsewhere, so I’ll move on.
At the Salon in Angers, we tasted hard for a couple of days, but the weekend was over and work began to intrude, so I regret that I didn’t taste everything I wanted to. David Lillie, the hardest working man in the wine business, tasted the entire salon and you can ask him about any favorites I’ve missed.
Cazin’s Cheverny (SB/Chard) is fine, well-made, commercially useful wine that you might drink off a list, but it isn’t geek wine. The 2007 versions have ripe SB noses, plush full textures, they are clean and correct. Cazin reports like others that they battled the rains but harvested clean grapes without rot. The wine is much improved to my taste over recent vintatges, coming in at a sane 12*, vs. a crazy 14.5 in ’06 and a hefty 13.5 in ’05. There was no chaptalization on any of the wines chez Cazin in ’07, he’s happy with anything over 11.5%.
There is only 50 ha of romorantin in Cour-Cheverny, and you can’t get the Touraine AOC with it, although there remain a few vines here and there. The regular ’07 Cour-Cheverny from young vines is a fine version, balanced with romo’s bright acidity, pretty and clean floral aromas, I would expect it to develop well. The old vines batch (40-80 y.o.) gets a mix of foudre and barrel maturation, and he’d like to give it 2 years but there is too much demand. My note says, “Pow!” This has a big extra dimension, more depth and power, it’s just a little rough now and definitely needs time.
Cazin lost all their red grapes to mildew and black rot. What a business.
From bottle, the ’06 Cour-Cheverny has a nice polished, slightly oily nose. Considerably refined by the extra age, it’s a big wine with a little rs and elevated alcohol, typical of the vintage. It is unusually precocious, showing romo aromatics that I usually associate with more age, so it might be interesting to people on that account.
Cazin’s practice is to make a Cour-Cheverny Cuvee Renaissance in vintages where he gets some botrytis on the Romorantin. He made a fine one in ’05, currently less evolved than the ’06 regular, it has a tight grip despite the significant residual sugar. To keep.
It is always fun to taste at Pinon, he is such a classy and gracious guy, and he makes great wines from his somewhat lesser terroir.
He disgorged some “Brut Zero” ’06 the week before the Salon, it will be on the market in a few months. It’s unusually round, and the first time he’s bottled without dosage. I like it a lot, though I think it will benefit from even a few more months in bottle, and probably from a couple of years. He will also do a dosed version, ca. 10 g/L (“brut” allows up to 15). It takes several months to integrate the dosage, so this may come along a bit later. The dosed version is currently a little smoky, with a chalky mineral nose. The sugar cushions the wine a bit on the palate. I’m a brut zero kind of guy, but for a nongeek audience the dosed version might (?) be preferable.
We also tried a 2004 petillant from mag. Age helps. This is a dense package of satisfying mineral goodness. Plenty of room to run.
The ’04 Touraine rose fizz remains great. I’ve drunk through a case and still have a few. Grolleau (Groslot??), Cot, and 2 vines of cabernet franc, it’s pale orange, showing a bit riper and more fruity than it did on release in NYC. Groslot is planted in low areas where there’s more risk of frost, since unlike chenin it will set a second crop after a frost.
But on to the current wines. Pinon made spectacular sec in ’07. A classic profile of 12.8% abv, 4.5 g/L rs, and 5.8 g. total acid contrast with 2006’s 12.0, 5.0, and 5.0. A pineapple nose precedes a mouthful of minerality and good acidity. It’s a vintage with significant acid, but it’s clean and classic. I would drink this very cheerfully.
His 2007 weather report matched what we’ve already heard—a hot April advanced the vines, and it rained for 3 months thereafter. He said the grass between the rows was “like in Ireland.” But they got a dry east wind and sun and harvested extremely early, beginning September 19th, with ’90 the earliest on record.
A taste of the ’06 sec suffers in comparison—a little flat, less bright, indistinct, slightly blurry. I don’t really need to drink this, but it isn’t bad.
Pinon is considering a major departure in 2007. Historically, his major production is a demi-sec that he labels “Tradition” for reasons I’ve described elsewhere. It is a blend of his terroirs, and is classic Vouvray. He is now considering bottling two of his terroirs separately, and if I understood correctly giving up the “Tradition.” We tasted the components.
The first is from a silex terroir on a slope, and the second is a clay terroir higher up on the plateaus.
The ’07 “Silex Noir” (provisionally) is 12.3% abv, with 15 g rs and a solid 2007 acidity of 5.7. It is somewhat exotic and tropical on the nose, big and active on the palate (my note says “rock and roll”). It has a long, tropical but not OTT or corrupt finish, good minerality, and is very long. I like this a lot. Francois says it has a “peacock tail” finish, to use a metaphor more typically applied to Musigny in my experience, but I’m not complaining.
The 2007 “Les Trois Argiles” has a quite similar analysis at 12.4%, 16 g rs, and 5.4 g acid, but it shows a very different side of chenin, with much more minerality and much less tropicality. One site is pure red clay, one is clay and silex, and one is clay and sand. This is also interesting wine, but is more linear and more mineral.
Francois clearly has a legitimate case for separating these sites into separate bottlings should he choose to do so. It will be very interesting to see how they develop with time if he does.
We taste the ’06 Tradition, but it is in the shadow of the last two. 12.2%, 21 g rs, and 4.9 g acid, it’s riper as per the vintage but clunks just a bit.
The second bottling of the 2003 Moelleux is described as the “Export” bottling, but we’re unable to get Francois to tell us whether it’s better or worse than the first. It’s from a clay (argile) site, slower to develop. Francois says that the silex sites almost always get more botrytis even in a dry vintage, since dry clay seals off the soil like pavement and there is very little evaporation from moist earth, but the silex sites are open and the grapes live in more humidity. The 2003 is 12.3%, with 60 g rs and 3.8 acid. “Good breakfast wine” someone says, and it could indeed wash down sausages and eggs. Nice wine.
There is a pure passerillage 1er Trie in 2003, with 11.6 abv, 103 g rs, and 4 g acid. It’s a tasty sweetie, nice solid wine, some good phenolic structure in the finish in a good way. Pinon says it’s “Gothic, not Romanesque”, meaning that it’s lacy not foursquare. This is fair enough.
Shawn asks a very good question, about why this wine with higher sugar and lower acid doesn’t feel unbalanced. Pinon talks about organic farming and the absence of chaptalization (ain’t it wacky that most producers chaptalize sweet wines?), and so on. I pitch in with a hypothesis that with grapes concentrated by passerillage there is a much higher skin-to-juice ratio, and that the extra phenolics help provide a sense of structure. We don’t really reach a conclusion, but it’s an interesting point.
The 2005 1er trie is a big exotic boy, with 10.7 abv, 152 g rs, and 4.2 total acid. It has the full panoply of botrytis flavors on the palate, gives a very sweet impression, is delicate with good balance through the long finish, nice wine.
We tasted at the Salon with Domaine Huet. We were too many to fit inside the booth, so we were a bit in traffic, but it is always worth it to try these wines. This is a vintage that I will want to try again on arrival, but I think the impression is pretty clear.
The 2006s were of the vintage. The LHL sec is fine but not fab, showing some fine fruit, it’s dry with good balance, and quite clean for the vintage. The Le Mont sec (clay and silex, for those keeping score) shows more tropicality, more fruit, more Le Mont minerality and grip, with a structured finish, but I’m not backing up the truck.
The 2007 harvest started 2 weeks earlier than usual, on September 19th. It produced an ’07 LHL sec tht is pale, and a big sec with a long refreshing finsish, nice clean fruit. It’s 13.2%, 7.3 g rs, and 5.7 g acid, so bigger than Pinon’s by analysis, for instance, and tasting like it. It’s good clean refreshing wine, and I’ll drink it, but I don’t require vast quantities.
There is also a CdB sec in 2007, and this clay over chalk site is currently showing a very lightly reductive pineapple nose, it’s not entirely full in the middle, and it’s got the predicted structured mineral finish. It’s 13.35 abv, 7.5 g rs, and 5.6 g. acid. This is a structured sec that needs time, and I may do the experiment on a few.
The ’07 Le Mont sec is pale and clean, and the balance of its components is more established currently. It has classic structure, has 1 g more rs, and is quite long. This might well go the way of the ’96 sec, and I will probably try some to see. It’s also slightly lighter in acid, at 5.45 total.
The ’07 LHL demi-sec still has 20 g. rs, and probably won’t go much lower. It is in a good place, with nice fruit, good balance, firm acid structure, and it’s a fine classic Vouvray demi-sec.
There is no CdB demi in ’07, and the ’07 Le Mont just finished fermenting and wasn’t shown.
We tried ’06 Le Mont demi-sec, and it’s not surprisingly much less primary. It has a somewhat odd earthy note, and is showing a little metallic on the palate, with a little alcohol. I should retaste.
The winery is offering the ’01 CdB demi-sec now, since to their surprise it is showing well. To my surprise, too. It has a big developed nose, some botrytis, it’s quite approachable. Pinguet feels it’s at its apogee now, and who are we to argue? Drink up. It’s 12.7, 22.8 rs, and 5.75 g acid.
There is a CdB moelleux in 2007. It’s nice wine, with some clean botrytis on the nose. It currently shows quite open and complete, but lacks something of the full force of the Clos du Bourg on the palate.
The miracle 2006 CdB 1er trie shows much sweeter and more mineral currently than the 2007, though it has only 15 grams more sugar at 65.
They kindly open a 1996 Le Mont 1er for us. This is a big passerillage vintage, with a huge nose, monster tropical fruit, a very long dried fruit finish, it’s great wine but still quite young.
Further delights include the ’89 LHL 1er. The color on this is beginning to go green, but in no way is the wine old. Great stuff from a great vintage.
We finish with ’01 Petillant, which is leaner wine than the great 2002. It could surely benefit from a couple of years in the cellar as a start.
I’m running a bit low on the battery, and AA #45 is crossing over Boston now, but let me see how far I can get through the chenins.
Francois and Manuela Chidaine continue to produce brilliant, pure, clean wines. I often find the wines hard to judge at the salon, since his fermentations are slower than some others, and the wines are typically less formed. They were a little farther along this year than in the last few vintages, but still my comments are thus more tentative than they might be with Pinon or Huet, although of course these are all just snapshots of very young wines. I do my best.
I also have the feeling sometimes that Francois is a little suspicious of me, since I am a known fan of the wines of his neighbor across the river and there is some rivalry, a little fussin’ and feudin’, going on here. There is also just a little of this from the other side, and it makes me extremely impatient. My interest in the village politics of Vouvray is extremely far down the list of fish that require frying in my kitchen, I assure you. In addition, I think that Vouvray is far better served by having multiple exemplars making great wine, Montlouis too. These guys should be working on getting along and helping the appellation. {/rant}
That said, I very much enjoyed Chidaine’s young ‘07s.
The Bournais (named for a kind of limestone) is still working, but it has the big pretty Bournais nose, good brightness, acid, and minerality. It is back to a more classic style, with good ripeness and higher acidity. It is more refreshing if less plush than the atypical ’05.
The 2007 Clos du Breuil is still estery, still working, but it finishes with a zippy dry impression and is crisp. Tasting really good now.
’07 Choisilles is earthier, still working, has 20 g rs now but Francois expects it to go dry.
The ’07 Vouvray Argiles is cloudy, with a big estery nose—it’s softer than the above wines from Montlouis, but hard for me to judge.
2007 Clos Baudoin was picked relatively early (FC thinks it is a vineyard for dryer wines and picks accordingly). It has a lot of potential, with a developing nose, good phenolic and acid structure and minerality. It was harvested on the 27th and 28th of September. There is a lot of potential here.
2007 Montlouis Clos Habert isn’t as far along—it has higher alcohol and more richness, it’s still settling. 13.6% abv, and should end with 20 g rs. I don’t love it now, but it’s way early. The 2007 Tuffeaux was also hard for me to judge.
’07 Le Bouchet had tropical fruit, and its bright acid and minerality were cushioned by more rs. Lots of potential here, great acid. It’s at 50 g. rs now, Chidaine would like to get it down to 20-25g.
Overall, the ‘07s are clean, pretty wines with good ripe flavors and refreshing acidity. It should be a very fine if not rich vintage, pretty classic stuff. Francois commented that the ‘05s are currently closed and that the ‘04s are drinking well now.
There is no true sec in the range in ’06. I will abbreviate my notes a bit in the interest of space. ’06 Choisilles is showing a little alcohol now, and has less definition and delicacy than I would prefer. The ’06 Argiles is earthy, shows its EtOH, and wasn’t very open. I liked the ’06 Clos Baudoin quite a bit. It’s quite powerful and intense, but interesting stuff. The ’06 Habert is a light moelleux at 29g. I wish it had a bit more fruit richness to go with the alcohol and sugar. ’06 Tuffeaux is 34 g, and I’ve lost my note. ’06 Le Bouchet is at 40 g, and has nice grip, with upfront phenolics that need some time.
The ’05 Bournais you’ve all had, and it didn’t seem closed to me.
There is a newly released ’05 Montlouis moelleux. It accidentally has 100% NFO—it was a big crop, he ran out of barrels, couldn’t get used ones, so there you are. You can smell and taste the wood, but it isn’t way out of line. There is perhaps just a bit of wood on the palate. One of my companions described it as “slutty”, so I’m sure it will manage to find a date.
I very much admired an ’04 Vouvray petillant natural—he stopped the fermentation at 14 g., and finished in bottle with added yeast. This had just been disgorged, and will be a new release. It had some nice development, some nice secondary aromas, and some texture from the lees.
He also had a demi-sec rose petillant of gamay in ’06 that I wasn’t crazy about. There is none in ’07 since he lost the entire gamay crop.
There is a very different expression of chenin downstream of Angers in the Anjou and at Savennieres (Closel and Laureau, Ogereau). I am going to rush these notes just a bit because it is looking like a wave of work is about to break over me and I want to get the chenin bit out ASAP.
I really like Evelyn de Jessy at Chateau des Vaults, which is what they’re renaming Closel in an attempt to make it harder for American consumers to pronounce. She’s funny, energetic, and dedicated to her wines. She reported yields of 20 hl/ha in ’07, and said they did much better than their neighbors who did not practice organic viticulture. The ’06 Jalousie we had was a bit warm, and needed to be cooler to bring the alcohol down—it’s a big ripe wine with a peachy nose, crunchy Savennieres minerality in the finish. Serve cold. I had a chance to try ’04 Caillardieres twice during the week, and it impressed. It is also big, powerful, and mineral. Needs time. I still like ’04 Papillon. ’05 Papillon is shut down so tight you can’t believe it. Put it in the back of the cellar. She has some experimental sparkling wines and a rose of CS.
I also tried some good wines at Ogereau. They have an ’07 Anjou blanc that is 70 chenin/30 chardonnay. Both contribute to the nose and the palate impression, and I suspect the chardonnay of contributing to the impression of alcohol that dragged this down a bit for me. An ’06 Anjou blanc sec was surprisingly rich, just slightly oxidative, a bit betwixt and between, also some EtOH here. The ’05 Cuvee Prestige is all chenin, and I liked it quite a bit. Polished and stylish, and no extra alcohol evident here. The same wine in ’06, just bottled, had a bit of an impression of NFO, or more than a bit. It was also a bit hot, and the combination didn’t do it for me. Ogereau’s ’06 Savennieres was just bottled, and it too shows a bit of oak and doesn’t have all the structure I’d like to see to have these age. The ’05 Savennieres (Clos le Grand Beaupreau, a SW slope facing Vernou from Roche aux Moines) is a very nice wine. Great crunchy non-calcareous chenin minerality, not showing alcohol, quite clean, quite long. Will age.
I had a brief chance to taste with Damien Laureau, a young producer in Savennieres. He and Marc Ollivier turn out to have met at some organic farming shindig and are now pals. His ’06 Anjou blanc Clos Fremur (from fiberglass, which he says admits a bit of oxygen), is a bright, clean, not OTT wine. His Savennieres has comparatively young vines, planted 1989/1990, and I believe they show both his good work and the youth of his vines. The ’05 Les Genets is from sandy areas, done with ambient yeast, 18 months in fiberglass. It has good structure, nice clean fruit, balanced at a moderately high 2005 level of richness, with a good finish. The ’05 Le Bel Ouvrage, a schist site, has nice clarity, much more depth. It’s not the most intense wine, but it is stylish and good. He does it first in barrel for a year, then in a vat for a year. He intends it to age.
I’ll call it a day there, and let Belleviere’s chenins wait for another report.
On to some other grapes as soon as work allows.
Joe
A second set of note is here.
Edited by - SFJoe on 03/19/2008 17:17:20
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Loire notes 2.08: Melon and Chenin
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Posted - 02/09/2008 : 16:30:50
