Y. Amirault?

S

Saina Nieminen

Saina Nieminen
Yannick Amirault Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil La Mine 2006
13%; 24,60 in the special order selection. It starts out very primary with a bit of sucrosity to the lovely Cab Franc perfume. With an hour or so of air, the savoury, leafy, tobacco aspects gladly overwhelm the sweetness and the result is fantastically drinkable and enjoyable. It is sweetly fruity, but has a lovely, juicy lightness about it that makes it extremely refreshing and moreish. Nice stuff!

I also remember an '04 Coudraye with fondness, but I haven't seen talk about the producer here. Since we only have three Loire Cab Franc producers imported to Finland (Couly-Dutheil and Joguet are the other two), I do wonder if these producers are representative? How skewed is my perception of the grape from this horribly limited sample?
 
Amirault makes a very slick, modern style of Bourgueil, often more amped up than others in the appellation (think Alliet in Chinon).

Couly is pretty wan. Joguet, I tend to think, is coming back after a hollow period and might be the most "representative" of the three, if we can use words like that.

Most platonic of all (thus, I s'pose "representative") to me is Baudry.

But there are other fun things out there, right in Cravant-les-Coteaux. For instance Pascal et Batrice Lambert.
 
What do you think of Wilfred Rousse? I had the 04 VV last night and it was more in the modern vein to me...more in the Amirault style...clean but not my thing...
 
I haven't had a recent Yannick Amirault but slick has never been a word that comes to mind when I think of his wines, though I'm open to arguments regarding this viewpoint. He makes numerous cuvees each year - barrique and tank, siting from a variety of terroirs.

The Malgagnes cuvee is barrique aged. I remember loving a "Petite-cave" cuvee from a while back, which I bought.

There was also a fine 1999 of Yannick's that I bought to comemorate my son Alan's birth year.
 
Alliet is a fair comparison in terms of due respect. But the Joguet association is apt as well for enterprising and deliberate ambition. Amirault is large scale for a family farm. Still small in any event.

He is close by the village of Bourgueil; most of his vines around St. Nicolas are farily recent. But he is working in Les Malgagnes for a long time now, and that is always one of the top wines from St. Nicolas. Pretty much on a level with his top Bourgueils.

It seems similar in Canada: one is much more likely to see Amirault, Joguet, and Couly-Dutheil than just about anyone else. Here, Amirault is the only one of the three worth the price, and not just because it is lower.

If you've got La Mine from Yannick Amirault, well that's better than Les Clos Lourioux from Domaine Olivier, which is the St. Nicolas in my glass. Which in 2005 is not so bad neither. You know it's not a given that you have a decent St.-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil anywhere you might happen to be.
 
Certainly slicker than some of the faves, but I've liked and continue to like his wines. I can't actually keep track of all the different cuvees, but a '96 Les Quartiers was very persuasive last year. The '04 range, which I tasted through in 2007, was pretty good.
 
Thanks for the views. Slick is indeed a good word, but at least it has more personality than most wines available here, so in the absence of the truly greats, I will continue to occasionally drink it - and the Couly-Dutheil, too, which I opened today.

Chinon La Baronnie Madeleine 2001 is light, honest and typical compared to the 15% abv monstrosities that some recent ones have been (I think both the '03 and '05 range were mostly at 15% abv?). 12,5% abv, sweetly fruity but smells deliciously of tobacco and damp earth. Juicy, fun, ripely herbaceous. And just 13,80.

If the less exciting producers are making wines so to my taste, I can't wait to try the truly great ones!
 
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