Bossard “Domaine de l’Ecu” 2005 Muscadet Sèvre et Maine “Expression d’Orthogneiss” (Loire) – Sometimes Muscadet is worth holding, sometimes it isn’t. This was the latter. Now, it’s weak and trembling minerality, eroded and barely noticeable, with almost nothing surrounding it. Oh well. (6/12)
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loire
Paula Cole
Chaussard “Nana, Vins et Cie” “You Are So Bubbly” (Loire) – The 2008 bottling, I think, but I don’t know for sure. Frothy and thick, a very particulate wine with a fair number of stylistic familial relationships with both the orange and the natural, yet with a quirky and variably appealing individuality of its own. Cooked strawberries, albino plums, earth, perhaps even a little fruit soda. Challenging, and not everyone will like it. But I do. (6/12)
Chaume E the way to go home
Baumard 2002 Quarts de Chaume (Loire) – Powerfully sweet, like liquid chenin candy, but with extra quartzage. Developing? Only in the notional sense; while this is far from as sweet as QdC can get, experience suggests that the wines are essentially immortal, or at least so on any human scale. It’s very, very good. Do I care that it may have been made with cryoextraction? (To be fair, I don’t know if this vintage was or not.) Yes, and indeed my enjoyment is proportionally tempered. (5/12)
Exit
Ollivier 2004 Muscadet Sèvre & Maine Sur Lie “Cuvée Eden” “Cuvée Vieilles Vignes” (Loire) – Drinking really nicely at the moment, its shells liquefied and its minerals having joined the party, which is now humming at a slightly higher volume than before. Everything is knit and in place. There are those who would hold this longer, and they’re not wrong, but I quite like the balance of strength and complexity right now. (5/12)
Breton butter
Cousin 2009 Vin de Table “Anjou Pur Breton” (Loire) – Capital-N Natural, here expressed in an untamed carnival ride of spike, froth, brett, and electricity. May once have had illicit relations with a lambic, given the strong family resemblance. The tannins are oddly sandpapery. It’s not exactly easy to love, but I quite like it…it’s worth noting, however, than one drinking companion – no stranger to the category’s eccentricities – pronounces it “the worst wine I’ve ever tasted.” I can’t say that I’m surprised by the extremity of reaction, because there’s zero compromise in this wine. (4/12)
Second Cazin, twice removed
Cazin 1999 Cheverny “Le Petit Chambord” (Loire) – Starts out full but with a decided totter in its step. Aeration restores full vibrancy, and though there’s light oxidation it’s the fully-integrated, essential kind rather than the decaying, covering kind. Wax, old upholstery, bronzed golden plum, and – perhaps the most surprising yet wonderful elements of all – fiery acidity. (3/12)
Treau & fru
Filliatreau 2005 Saumur (Loire) – The last of a mistakenly-held batch (synthetic corks), and more or less exemplary of the mistake: the fruit has developed in a leathery, meaty, blueberry-infused fashion that would, given proper structural support, actually be quite pleasant. But the acid is razory and the tannin desiccated, and each sip – there aren’t many before the rest goes down the drain – is like a pleasant vinous interlude followed by a vigorous tongue sanding. Well, it’s gone. (3/12)
Bill Roussel
Roussel & Barrouillet “Clos Roche Blanche” 2007 Touraine “Cuvée Gamay” (Loire) – Clinging, barely, to the tatters of a life shortened by a closure insufficient to the task. There are some lovely red soil aromatics, but everything around and beneath them has fallen into ruin. (3/12)
Gamaybe not
Roussel & Barrouillet “Clos Roche Blanche” 2007 Touraine “Cuvée Gamay” (Loire) – Probably the best of a bad lot, by which I don’t mean that the wine was ever bad, but that the accidental decision to cellar it without realizing the cork was synthetic has led to a lot of dumped wine. This, at least, clings to a sharp cranberried minerality, and there’s a hint of the generosity that was in the finish. Like the others, though, it’s attenuated and shrieking with bared acidity. Thankfully, there’s no more. (2/12)
Guioff
Guion 2009 Bourgueil “Cuvée Prestige” (Loire) – So very hard. Under the tannic weight-slam measured by its tonnage there’s dark, dirty, punk rock fruit that will, one day, clean up enough to be presentable at the Kennedy Center. Come that day, I expect that the aromatics will be rather lavish. But there’ll always be that hard edge. Gravity doesn’t go away. (2/12)