Seven Kermit Lynch Loire wines

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SteveTimko

Steve Timko
NV Catherine et Pierre Breton Vouvray La Dilettante Pétillant Naturel - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Vouvray (4/15/2012)

Nice pear and other white fruit on the nose and palate. It's either fruity or off-dry Decent finish. Lots of bubbles. I liked this. I asked the Kermit Lynch rep how long they had Breton and he said they had Breton before Dressner but didn't distribute them nationally.

2010 Domaine du Salvard Cheverny Rosé Delaille - France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Cheverny (4/15/2012)

Priced like a bleed off but tastes like full-skin contact rose. For $14 I wasn't expecting much but this turned out to be a pretty good wine. Strawberries and watermelon on the nose. More watermelon and minerality on the palate. Nice balance and good finish. Light. This would pair with a wide range of food and also go well by itself. I liked this. A Kermit Lynch import.
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2010 André-Michel Brégeon Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie - France, Loire Valley, Pays Nantais, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine (4/15/2012)

Definitely a rounder Muscadet. I drank this without having a layer of skin burned off the inside of my mouth (I'm looking at you, Marc Ollivier). Nice sea spray on the nose. Where's the oysters? Nice minerality and lemon on the palate. Not especially complex but enjoyable. I would put this on my buy list. A Kermit Lynch import.
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2009 Denis Jamain Reuilly Les Pierres Plates - France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Reuilly (4/15/2012)

An explosive smell of gooseberry and some grass. It didn't seem particularly French because it didn't seem very restrained. I don't remember the last time I had a Reuilly, but it was nothing like this. On the palate, some minerality and some green flavors. Fairly simple It wasn't a bad wine. It was unexpected. I would never think this was from the same valley as Sancerre. I didn't like it but I could see how others would. A Kermit Lynch import.
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2010 Catherine et Pierre Breton Vouvray La Dilettante - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Vouvray (4/15/2012)

This wasn't showing much and swirling didn't help open it up. My Spidey senses tell me a year or two in the cellar will help it blossom. It showed some honey and white fruit. It wasn't as acidic as some Huet and Foreau from 2008 and 2009 I've tried in the last couple of years but there's a nice core of acidity. There's a good finish. I bought this. A Kermit Lynch import.
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2010 Domaine de l'Aujardière (Eric Chevalier) Vin de Pays de la Loire - France, Loire Valley, Vin de Pays de la Loire (4/15/2012)

Candied, bright red cherry nose. I'm guessing the vines are young. Tastes nothing like Sancerre rouge. On the palate, definitely on the red fruit side of the spectrum. Balanced but simple. It's not soft but it doesn't seem to have the acidity common to European wines. Okay finish. This is not a long- or mid-term ager. I like it better than his stainless steel chardonnay. A Kermit Lynch import.
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2009 Catherine et Pierre Breton Bourgueil Les Galichets - France, Loire Valley, Touraine, Bourgueil (4/15/2012)

I didn't dislike this, would could be an indictment of the wine. I almost universally dislike cabernet franc, especially from the Loire, because the green pepper taste is exaggerated on my palate. I got some earthiness and some tea flavors. The tannins were mild. The wine seemed especially light. I drank it but I didn't like it enough to buy a bottle. A Kermit Lynch import.
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originally posted by SteveTimko:
I drank this without having a layer of skin burned off the inside of my mouth (I'm looking at you, Marc Ollivier).
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This makes no sense.

2009 Denis Jamain Reuilly Les Pierres Plates - France, Loire Valley, Upper Loire, Reuilly...I would never think this was from the same valley as Sancerre.
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Check out a map. Reuilly and Sancerre are a solid 80km/50 miles apart. You wouldn't expect them to taste the same.
 
Marc/Rémi get higher TA, lower pH in most of their cuvées, but I think the Les Gras Moutons has similar numbers to the Brégeon (and tastes similarly round), so I don't understand the acid reference. The latter makes some of my favourite Muscadet - watch out for the 2004 (not the Gorges) coming soon. 2011 from them is pretty decent as well.
 
Steve, try the 09 Clisson from Marc Ollivier.
It is a very balanced, leesy, richer style of Muscadet when I tasted it this week. The Clisson is complex and multifaceted. It seemed almost corpulent after a glass of the 2010 Briords. The '10 Briords is fabulous and near perfection for my taste buds but may have more acid then you might like.
 
Check out a map. Reuilly and Sancerre are a solid 80km/50 miles apart. You wouldn't expect them to taste the same.
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Well, some parts of Paso are about the same road distance and those wines pretty much taste the same!
 
Thanks for the notes. It seems like an enterprising selection. I haven't seen any of these producers on sale round here except for the Bretons' Bourgueil.

I wouldn't be sure that their Vouyray will blossom in as little as a couple of years. Typically Vouvray is delicious for about a year after bottling and then goes into a sulk for several years. The extent of this differs from producer to producer and from vintage to vintage with, in my experience, Foreau's going into the longest and deepest sulk, up to 8-10 years in some vintages.

It's a shame about your not liking Loire CabFranc. I bet that I would have loved that Bourgueil Galichets 2009, just as I did their Nuits d'Ivresse 2009 at a November tasting in Catherine's presence.
 
If you're sensitive to methoxypyrazines and dislike their flavor, Loire Cab Franc is something of an uphill battle. There will be exceptions, but the odds are not in your favor. I have moderate sensitivity and tend to like them as long as they don't dominate, so I enjoy my Loire CF and NZ SB.

My experience is that traveling 25 miles east-west in the Paso region has quite dramatic effects due to soil and microclimate variations, as long as they aren't hanging the grapes too long or burying them in heavy oak.
 
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
The 04 Gorges is no slouch, either. Is there another special cuvee 04 due for release, or do you just mean the regular bottling?
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Bottled in March this year, arriving in Singapore in June. It's pretty tasty.
 
I am surprised to hear others don't feel Marc Ollivier's don't have unusually high acid. I haven't tried all of his wines, but I've tried several and get a searing acidity. Others I've tasted the wines with have made the same observation.
If they're all like that, it's worth checking out his other wines.
It's not just that the wines were different. I recognize that wines from the same town, like Graacher Domprobst and Graacher Himmelreich, can be different. They both taste like German riesling, as do wines from the Nahe, the Mittelrhein and Franken. The Reuilly tasted like it came from another continent.
By the way, how do you pronounce Reuilly? I didn't realize until this tasting that Bourgueil was pronounced with a hard G.
Christian, I was not aware of methoxypyrazines. Thanks for the information. It's something I will explore.
 
originally posted by SteveTimko:
I am surprised to hear others don't feel Marc Ollivier's don't have unusually high acid. I haven't tried all of his wines, but I've tried several and get a searing acidity. Others I've tasted the wines with have made the same observation.
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What's "unusual" to one person may be typical to another. And one may doubtless prefer one to another. One guy's "searing" may be another person's "refreshing." Just ask Brad.

By the numbers, Marc's acids are typically higher than Luneau-Papin's, say. I personally find the wines to have better balance, on many occasions.

Also, it depends what you plan to do with them.
 
An 'i' or 'e' after 'g' usually gives the soft, 'j'-like sound; 'u' and, I think
'a' and 'o,' as well, will give the hard 'g.'

Sharon or Cliff would know the rule cold, I imagine.
 
TA, yes, pH, not so much. It's also tough to compare granite and schist.

Acidity in wine is a pretty complicated subject.

We can start with malic/tartaric, which is finely poised in Muscadet. A highly cropped, machine-harvested Muscadet can be great in youth - make sure you harvest early enough to get some malic acid on the finish, chaptalise sensibly, and push the lees influence. Many a prestige cuvée has been made this way.

We can talk about the stages of acidity perception - in the attack, on the mid-palate, at the start of the finish, or as part of the 'sustain'. Granite and some of the older, harder, less porous rocks (amphibolite, gabbro, serpentine) can produce wines where the acidity is only really apparent at the very end of the finish, especially when they age. For a masterclass on this, drink Guy Bossard's terroir-based cuvées over several hours. The 2010s, for example - check out where the Orthogneiss shows off its structure. Compare and contrast with the Granite.

Temperature. I drink most of my Muscadet straight out of the cellar, about 12°C. I think that's warmer than most people, but about 75% of the time it's a young Muscadet (less than 10 years from harvest), which is fresh enough to take a higher temperature. Try it warmer, and the acidity will only really be apparent towards the finish.

I won't even get into food. Let's just say I prefer my seafood fat melted rather than raw when drinking structured Muscadet, which is why a steamed crab makes a lot more sense for granite-based Muscadet than oysters.

And so on...
 
Excellent primer, Yixin. Have you (or any others) visited or tasted from any of two properties belonging to a Veronique Gunther-Chereau, Chateau du Coing and Chateau de la Gravelle? They were here at a wine expo last week, and while the basic muscadets didn't do it for me, a 2008 Chateau du Coing Comte de Saint Hubert from 100Y old vines and a 2005 Chateau de la Gravelle Gorges that spent five years on the lees were very impressive, and cost peanuts.
 
As I told a client who only wanted 'the very best' in Muscadet, the basic cuvées are where the truth and core of any estate are revealed. If you make a great 2 Euro (okay, probably 3 nowadays) Muscadet, because you care, then I want to work with you. Same for the Rhône or anywhere else, really.

ETA: WTF is wrong with the HTML on this site? Politburo, get your act together or I'll go all Bo Xilai on you. Why does the frigging Euro sign not show up?
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
If you're sensitive to methoxypyrazines and dislike their flavor, Loire Cab Franc is something of an uphill battle. There will be exceptions, but the odds are not in your favor. I have moderate sensitivity and tend to like them as long as they don't dominate, so I enjoy my Loire CF and NZ SB.
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Thanks for raising this issue about which I feel very strongly.

IMO the presence of gentle bell pepper, herbaceous or forestal greenness (call it what you will) is an essential component of the flavour palette of red wines from the French Atlantic regions. Of course if they are dominant like almost all other flavour components, the wine is unbalanced and there may indeed be some people who instinctively dislike any trace. However I rant against the increasing brain-washing of consumers and growers to regard any trace of these elements as a wine fault. On the contrary I find that Bordeaux, Loire CabFranc and other wines from the South-West without them become quite dull, however impressive the other components.

The same goes for excessive demonisation of brett and VA.
 
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