Laroche “Domaine aux Moines” 2001 Savennières-Roche aux Moines (Loire) – Layers of oxidation. Fulsome with a barky, drying palate. Snow globe-like with its swirling tartrates (and my pour is far from the bottom of the bottle). Copper-jacketed and starting to preserve itself in amber. I spend a good twenty minutes trying to decide if I like this, and never quite come to a conclusion. (11/10)
Browse Tag
loire
Hawaiian Taluau
Taluau 2006 Bourgueil “Cuvée du Domaine” (Loire) – Juicy. Black-fruity. Some grit and paste-powder texture. But big and a little swaggering, even polished…I might place this in the exurbs of Bordeaux before I got anywhere near the Loire, and while the wine’s quite appealing as a beverage, I can’t say that the preceding is 100% complimentary. (12/10)
Francly, my dear…
C&P Breton 2006 Bourgueil “Franc de Pied” (Loire) – Cellar-culling, and here I found a bottle unwisely stashed amongst the ageable Loire reds. No, not with this closure. It is still just barely appealing, with highly aromatic herbal/soil notes dominant, but the fruit is well on its way to complete desiccation and the tannin is harsh and sandpapery. Don’t make my mistake (though if this advice is still useful, I guess you already have). (11/10)
What happened to Compuserve?
Leclerc “Domaine Chahut et Prodiges” 2008 “Coup de canon” Vin de Table (Loire) – Firmly in the rapidly genericizing “natural wine” taste realm of light, dancing fruit on the thin, crisp side of berrydom, a little earth, a lot of vivid acidity, and mild but (for now) thoroughly unobtrusive suggestions of uncleanliness. A lot of fun, in other words. (11/10)
Swimming upstream
Salmon 2009 Sancerre “Cuvée Vieilles Vignes” (Loire) – Very straightforward varietal characteristics, to which not much has been added or taken away. Sharp, greenish, and direct. (11/10)
The patron saint of mediocre French wine chains
Nicolas “Domaine de Bellivière” 2006 Coteaux du Loir “L’Effraie” (Loire) – All the structural elements (a little fruit-sweetness, just enough acidity) are here, and it seems like the wine I know, but it resists attempts to draw anything else forth. Is this just closed, is it off, or is it already fading? The intention was to give it a day or so of aeration to see what might develop, but repetitive puzzled sampling killed that idea. Well, there’s more, so we’ll see what happens to the next one. (10/10)
Lie Atwater
Ollivier “Domaine de la Pépière” 2008 Muscadet Sèvre & Maine “Sur Lie” (Loire) – As shelled a wine as I’ve ever tasted from Ollivier, and I’ve tasted a lot of mollusks from this producer. Straightforward, and yet it dances a bit with food, changing the step when one least expects it. Undemanding, perhaps, but not at all uninteresting. (10/10)
Old currency
Bossard “Domaine de l’Ecu” 2003 Muscadet Sèvre & Maine “Sur Lie” “Expression de Gneiss” (Loire) – Thick for a Muscadet (no real surprise there), but in that thickness is a powerful, insistent minerality that has also been concentrated beyond Muscadet’s wont. Dry, then sweet, then dry again…likely, in all cases, a mere illusion of density. One could do a lot worse from mostly-oppressive French 2003s than this bottle. (9/10)
Jean Vaumoreau
Druet 1996 Bourgueil Vaumoreau (Loire) – Clinging by the tiniest nanometer of a fingernail to life. At least, that’s the story for the first few hours or so, in which the wine’s complete unsuitability for acidphobes is fully asserted. Sitting in the bottle, minus a few pours, it develops and grows for a long while, finally emerging with a cohesive but still extremely gentle blend of earth and herb in slow braise, westering into a long night. (9/10)
To Grand Mont’s house we go
Druet 1997 Bourgueil “Cuvée Grand Mont” (Loire) – The fruit that was once fulsome (for a Bourgueil) has mostly passed into history, but lovers of the gentle and faded will still appreciate what remains. Fairly acidic in terms of its overall balance, but that’s more a result of general decay than it is a comment on the wine’s inherent acidity. There’s greenness, yes, but also a memory of black fruit, a range of dusts that may include the occasional white peppercorn, and a slow glide into passage. There’s no reason to hold this any longer, unless your tastes run necrotic…and I realize that some will indeed hold the wine in search of that very quality. (9/10)