The great rosés of the Loire are usually among the last to be released and this arrived just a bit earlier than expected. While most producers of rosé in France push to get their wines to market as early as possible in the spring to make sure they’re available for summer, most producers here in the central Loire see their rosés as being a little more serious than wash down wines for the pool. These wines do in fact age very well but I’ve never really seen the point since they’re so good right off the boat.
Domaine Baudry is generally considered to be the finest producer in the Chinon appellation, ground zero for great Cabernet Franc. As good as the reds are though, the scarce rosé (and even more elusive white wine produced at Baudry) is one of the region's best kept secrets and not making very much of it makes it pretty easy to stay under the radar.
While the limestone soils in Chinon generally produce the most serious, age worthy reds, it’s the gravel based soils near the river that produces the delicately textured fruit for the rosé. As with all of my favorite rosés this one is made by direct pressing of the fruit for subtle color extraction then aged in stainless steel briefly before bottling unfiltered to kept fresh. Farming is organic and impeccable with low yields for even the rosé and hand harvested fruit.
Very pale salmon color, firm on the palate with refreshing, bright acidity, bone dry with subtle peach and strawberry notes. Just 36 bottles available.
The Cantina Giuseppe Nada in Treiso is an absolute gem of a cellar in Barbaresco and a great if limited source of top quality, traditional Nebbiolo. Established in the 1960's as a winery, the Nadas got started the same way so many small producers did here by transitioning from farming and selling fruit to larger negociant concerns to making and bottling their own wine. They own and farm prime vineyard land in Treiso, the highest altitude village in the DOC just southeast of Barbaresco itself, principally the famed Casot cru which the family purchased from the Gaja family (yes, those Gajas) in 1900.
These days, it's still very much a family operation with Giuseppe and wife Nella Nada doing all the vineyard work, daughter Barbara running the office and son Enrico making the wine. At just 22 acres total and less than half of that planted to Nebbiolo, this is one of the Langhe's true boutique wineries. Farming is sustainable, something we're seeing more and more of in the Langhe, yields are low and winemaking very traditional with aging in large old wood for the Barbaresco.
The Casot Cru is a prized Nebbiolo site. Lying on a steep hillside with perfect southwest exposure, the vineyard generally provides good ripeness and in the 2013 vintage it was just about perfect. I've been tasting the vintage out of cask and bottle since 2014 and it reminds me a lot of the great 1999's with some of the power of 1996.
This is elegant, powerful Barbaresco with Burgundian characteristics which separate it from the more masculine Barolo a few miles to the south. Where we tend to find menthol and tar in Barolo, classic Barbaresco leans more towards the perfume of rose petals and licorice and this is an excellent example. Pure red fruit, rose, tobacco and mineral on the nose with a dense core of fruit and mineral flavor. Beautiful texture with firm tannins and a dense acidic profile. Definitely a good candidate for the cellar but approachable in the near term where you might want to wait a bit for your Barolo in this vintage. 600 cases made, not much imported (I may be the only retialer in the US with any of this at the moment) and at $32.99 one of the absolute best values you'll see all year in Barbaresco/Barolo.
Oh, the Dolcetto. Nada makes one of the great Dolcettos in all of the Langhe. Grown in the Marcarini Cru in Treiso, aged in stainless steel only. Deep ruby color, highly perfumed of violets and ripe red cherry with deep fruit flavors and subtle tannins. Just a perfect everyday table red. Small production here too at about 600 cases. A steal at under $20.
Bernard Baudry and son Matthieu are making some of the best wines in Chinon these days from the best terroirs in the appellation in Cravant-les-Coteaux. That's saying something considering that they didn't even own vines 40 years ago. In fact, along with Raffault, these are pretty clearly the best two sources of Chinon in my mind. Where Raffaults wines tend to be powerful, brooding and very slow to evolve, Baudry's Chinons are made in a slightly more approachable style though not at the expense of structure or integrity. This is more like comparing Latour to Lafite than anything else.
Farming here has been fully organic since 2006, not easy to do in this continental climate with it's humidity and otherwise unpredictable weather. The domaine consists of various parcels planted on diverse soils around Cravant from pure limestone at the top of the slope facing the Vienne river to alluvial deposits near the bottom. The Grézeaux is planted right in the middle on pure gravel and is by far my favorite wine here. These are the oldest vines at the domaine at 65 years and just about the purest expression of Cabernet Franc in the entire Loire Valley. The 2014 vintage got off to a rocky start with characteristically bad spring weather and up and down until August when things calmed down and nothing but perfect weather until harvest. These might be the best wines ever made at Baudry in fact.
This isn't the green bell pepper tinged, high yielding Loire Cabernet Franc you might find in an ice bucket at many Paris bistros - I do have a soft spot for those actually when it was all I could afford to drink when traveling - but more of an explosion of dark red fruit and minerality right out of the bottle. Really a joy to drink young but will age beautifully and I think everyone ought to have at least a few of these in their cellar for the long term. Not much available as usual.
This is one of those wines you pass around your Sunday dinner table with friends, family, a roast chicken and the fear of embarrassment as you open the last of the six pack you purchased just as you’re clearing the table for cheese (the real drinking starts with the cheese as I’m sure you all know) and now you’re out of wine. Some bottles just go down that easy.
The Domaine Dupeuble has been around for 500+ years as a continuously functioning winery. The name has changed a couple of times and the first Dupeuble to put their name on the shingle was Jules when he married the heiress to the property in 1919. Today, grandson Damien is in charge with his entire family involved in operations of this now 100 hectare property, 40% of it devoted to vines. Kermit Lynch, éminence grise of American importers, discovered these wines in the late 1980’s and a great relationship was forged. One that brought these wines to our shores for the first time.
The domaine is situated deep in the south of the Beaujolais AOC in the hamlet of Le Breuil. This is the southern half of Beaujolais, meaning everything south of the town of Villefranche-sur-Saone, and known for the light, fruity qualities of its wines. This is also the area known as the Bas Beaujolais, a terroir known for its flatter terrain and rich, sandstone and clay based soils. The majority of the Domaine Dupeuble is planted instead on granite soils with a bit of limestone, both types of rock the key to quality in the northern Beaujolais where the famous crus are located. This is what sets these wines apart.
Being staunch advocates of sustainable farming, there is no use of chemical pesticides or synthetic fertilizers. Fruit is harvested manually, fermentation done on natural yeast, no sulfur, no chaptalization, no new oak, no filtration. Real, honest wine and it’s clear from the first sip. I’d compare this to a classic Chambolle-Musigny but at $14.99 I think I’d sound a bit cheeky. So I won’t. In any event, this is the best red wine I’ve ever offered at this price point and it happens to be in decent supply so I’ll also refrain from badgering you to stock up (but you really should get your hands on some).
François Pinon isn’t a name you often hear mentioned in the same breath as Domaines Huet and Foreau but when you do, it’s often in the context of how Pinon’s wines are not only better but priced lower. The pricing issues have more to do with importer inflation (all three of these producers standard cuvées are virtually the same price in France for instance) but the quality and especially the style are something else. Pinon, in my mind anyway, is making a much more pure expression of Vouvray than the other two and the finest wine in the appellation. This is chenin blanc at it’s best.
François, a former child psychologist, took over the domaine from his father some 30 years ago now and has really made a name for himself and the domaine. It doesn’t hurt that the vineyards are planted on some of the regions best soils, black flint and limestone in particular at Pinon, but his farming and winemaking is just a lot better than most everyone else. François is manic about plowing which is great for healthy soil but very hard work. He started converting to organic viticulture 15 years ago or so which is no easy way to farm in the Loire Valley. The humid weather and frequent hailstorms force many larger growers to rely on chemical anti fungal treatments in these conditions and accomplishing this naturally is really difficult but necessary for making great wine. Winemaking is meticulous and fairly non-interventionist with the use of native yeasts and neutral fermentation and aging vessels, stainless steel and old foudres here.
The Cuvée Silex Noir, in reference to the black flint soil, is the flagship Vouvray produced by Pinon. This bottling really shows off the house style which is bright, expressive chenin of great depth and precision. You often see Vouvray labelled as Sec and Demi-Sec to indicate the residual sugar in the wine but when you don’t see any designation, it usually means it’s Sec Tendre, or “tenderly dry”. This is a bottling with a bit of residual sugar but when made well, the result is a very dry wine with high acid to balance the sweetness. The Silex Noir is a fantastic example of this style. Peculiarly, Sec Tendre is a designation that isn't allowed to appear on a bottle and Vouvray Sec isn’t necessarily dry. Go figure. In any event, this wine is almost startlingly dry to the palate with high acid, low (12%) alcohol and gorgeous fruit. 2014 is the best vintage in many years for the Loire Valley and it really shows in this wine. Floral, mineral and white fruit notes dominate the nose. Flavors of pear and lemon/lime fruit with a long, mineral inflected finish. These wines are capable of long aging but so enticing as a summer wine.
