Civilians sometimes ask me, “Yo, SF, how come you don’t make the wine? You are all over it, isn’t it your thing?” I usually say that I have good friends who make good wine for me, why would I want to foist my first crappy vintages on the world until I got to be half as good as my pals already are? Not to mention which, the terroir of TriBeCa does not lend itself to the task.
But the other answer is that agriculture is a tough, tough biz. One year it’s the locusts, the next year the frogs, then it rains blood. You know the drill. Vines can’t hide from the weather, and neither can vignerons. 2012 was like that in much of northern France. Several people I asked about it this week said they’d prefer not to talk about it, they were on to 2013, looking ahead not back. You probably already knew about the frost in the Touraine in April; it was tough. Hit a bit sporadically, but it hit many people hard. You may not have heard about the crappy flowering due to lots of late spring rain that came on top of that. This led to a poor and unevenly-timed set for grapes throughout northern France. Then there was the rain all summer. Yeesh. Not the glamorous life of the Staglins for most of the people I know, none of the sitting out on the patio in the warm sunshine while José brings you another refreshing beverage. Much more time on the tractor spraying for mildew.
I had a general sense of this, and once again, I was almost discouraged from going. You’d hate to have to smile while people whose work you admire pour you wines that you can’t. (Zeugma alert). But it was a somewhat calm window at work, so I jumped through it and went.
I’m still reflecting a bit on what I tasted and saw, but a few generalizations for your consideration and refutation.
* When a group of us visited the gracious and kind Francois Pinon, he told us that he would make only sparkling wines and a little sec in 2012. He handed out glasses for tasting that were oddly small, little cordial glasses. After we all had them and he was pouring vin clair for 2012 fizz, he said he’d given us tiny glasses to fix in our minds what a small crop it was. A potent metaphor. This outcome was typical of later-harvested varieties in 2012 in the Loire, particularly reds and chenin. Small crops, and they battled rain while they picked. We got bigger glasses later. Some folks had half a normal crop, another Touraine grower told me her yields were 5-12 hl/ha in different fields, and that another harvest like this would sink her.
* Earlier-harvested varieties did much better, sometimes very well. The very small crop gave vigorous grapes that withstood the assaults of the summer weather very well. I am ahead of myself, but based on tank samples, Marc Ollivier may have had his best vintage since 1996 or maybe 1990, depending. He harvested ripe grapes in good sun and the crop was in before the later rains. Not so in Vouvray. Luneau said they had rain every week in May, June, and July, but they still made great wines. Nady Foucault complained most about hail.
* 2011 was also not such an easy vintage, but it gave very different grapes in many places. By the end of my travels I convinced myself that there was a little green note that was found in many wines of this vintage whether white or red. It seemed a bit of a signature, though it was not ubiquitous.
* Do you remember Michael Crichton’s book from the ‘80s, Rising Sun? It was a novel about how the Japanese were pretty much going to have all our cash, all our women, and all our self-respect in next to no time. The US and Europe were maybe going to have jobs sweeping up, but that was about it. Anyhow, I remember reading it at the time and thinking in my one-day-to-be-Wall-St.-Joe way, ”Man, this *has* to be the top of this market. Time to short the Japanese.” I didn’t really figure out a way to do it, but it was the beginning of their so-called Lost Decade. What was that other one from 1999, “Dow 36,000”? Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of saying that guys like Bettane who have lately been slamming natural wine are very much lagging indicators. Tasting a number of natural winemakers whose work used not to delight me because of various pesky wine flaws, I was totally impressed this trip by how they have cleaned up their winemaking without losing the “natural” excitement in their wines. I’m sure you can still find crappy producers, but a guy like Rene Mosse made some of my favorite wines of the trip as one example, and Noella Morantin’s wines are much improved (though still not exactly my thing) as another.
* It is not quite news, but 2009 reds continue to be rich and ripe, and 2010 reds in many places are classical delights. 2011 much more variable and tough.
* I have a new bee in my bonnet, put there by a couple of NYC’s most prominent retailers. More on the mouse later. Probably much more.
* I had a funny conversation with Didier Barouillet yesterday where we agreed that at Clos Rougeard there wasn’t really any point in talking about good and bad vintages. They were all good, they were just remarkably different from each other. We could all aspire to do such good work.
* The lysozyme wars continue.
* I also tasted a bunch of wine at various shows from diverse locations outside the Loire. I hope I have time to write things up.
* Disclaimer language—few of these wines were tasted in careful analytical circumstances. Few 2012s are finished at this point. I do my best, but ripping through a zillion wines at the Dive is not the same as standing around Marc Ollivier’s cellar tasting 10 different tanks from the same vintage and really getting a sense of things (if not of the finished wines!). But I would not be surprised to learn that I was flat-out wrong about some wines. My health was pretty good most of the trip, except for one unfortunate 24-hour period that fortunately coincided with a decent hotel.
Muscadet
Olliver
I was fortunate to try 2011 and 2012 Muscadets from most of my favorite producers, and some good wines from a new guy as well. The best folks did well in a very tough vintage in 2011, but the 2012s that I got to try were remarkable. Marc Ollivier said that his first picking (usually not his best wines) came in at 12.6% natural and 6.4 grams of total acidity. So a very unusually ripe wine with higher than normal acidity. These grapes are usually 1.0-1.5% lower in alcohol (as a crude indication of ripeness) when they come in, and 6.4 grams of ta is satisfyingly high. You can smell the sunshine in this wine, it speaks eloquently of a great August. Another harvest from Pepière has a crazy dose of ripe yellow fruit. It is 12.4% and lower in acid than the first cuvee, but it still has great flavors and great structure, as does a third vat. My note on 2012 Clos des Briords says, “Wow, total fabulousness.” The wines are delicious already, though doubtless they will continue to evolve. Marc’s yields were about 20 hl/ha. I think the AOC allows 55, and I suspect many shoot for more.
We tasted 2011s from bottle—the first bottling of the Pepière (ask Kevin McKenna how to tell which is which. JUST KIDDING.) has fairly prominent 2011 herbal flavors. This bottling sold through months ago, and most of what you see now will be the considerably superior 2nd bottling. Marc said that blending 2011s was unusually difficult. The Briords also has an herbal hint, but it does also have a long and satisfying finish. Gras Moutons shows best of all on this day, with more richness, better integration, and perhaps better edge.
The 2010 Briords is classic stuff, though Marc complains of bottle shock, and it might have showed a bit closed. To calibrate you against 2012, it has 5.5-6 grams of ta. He also showed us a 2010 Ch. Thébaud from vat, it will be bottled this spring or summer after warmer weather makes the lees more active for a while. He might get 10k bottles of this in a good year. The wine is totally fabulous, “plus tonique” as someone said. Who knows, maybe it treats malaria, too. There is also a “3” in 2010, it is 1/3 from Clisson, 1/3 from Ch. cuvée. It was originally a serendipitous cuvee, he had extra Clisson that he didn’t want to blend, and there was also wine from the plateau above the Clos des Briords that is good in warm years. He put them together more not to waste the wine than with any particular idea, and the fermentation was very slow. It will find bottles around the end of this year, but it still needs time. There is a slight bitter note now that I imagine will resolve with further elevage, but it will remain a powerful wine. He keeps it 3 years on the lees due to the influence of his friend Michel Bregeon.
The 2009 Clisson is relatively low in acidity, but it has a phenolic note that is almost a bit bitter in the finish that helps compensate. It is nice wine and quite rich, but 2010 is more my style. I would not be at all surprised to find that many people reverse my preference. The Ch. Thébaud is showing more dimensions right now than the Clisson—more aromatics, more structure, very very good wine in a great place now, but one with a very long future. The 2009 “3” was just bottled in November. It’s rounder, softer from the lees, and still a bit monochromatic. Marc feels it is still settling into bottle and needs time, and I daresay he’s right.
We moved into the orgy of older wines, including the Clos des Briords vertical. I was more concerned to enjoy myself than to be analytical, but I’d mention that ’07 showed very classic, ’05 begins to give a bit of maturity, with extra complexity on a ripe medium-acid wine; the 2002 was unusually advanced, I hope not premox; ’99 is its usual self and it is probably time to drink more than hold these. My note on ’96 is “OMG, died and gone to heaven.” ’95 is softer, of course, but very pretty. We had a spectacular bottle of ’93, maybe the best ever. ’92 was much leaner, but still pleasant, ’89 ripe and very good, and the ’88 still fresh. I would also mention a great 1985 regular wine (’88 was the first vintage of Briords).
Marc and Rémi are also auditioning a potential third partner, a very nice woman named Gwen. We’ll see how that goes. As we drove through his vineyards we discussed that Guy Bossard and Michel Bregeon had both found successors named Fred, but that he had been unable to find a Fred of his own.
Luneau-Papin
The weather at Luneau was not so different from Pepière, I won’t take you through it again, but they shared blue skies in August. Clos des Allées is lovely in 2012 from vat, not clear yet, they will bottle after it warms up a bit and gets further benefit from the lees. But a very fine vintage of this great bargain. Pierres Blanches was harvested September 23rd, and has some of those yellow fruits, but also unusually good acidity and texture. Pierre de la Grange is a blend and 60% of their production. Solid stuff. The serpentine-soiled vines of the Terres de Pierre gave ripe wine at 12.5%, but also typically lower in acidity at 4.3-4.4 grams. These wines also show more color. A little reduction is normal at this point in the elevage. The Clos du Poyet parcel of the Pierres Blanches is also good, but I don’t think they will bottle it separately. Their Cru Communal “Goulaine,” (fka “Schistes de Goulaine”, but no mention of soil is allowed). Pierre-Marie was pleased because the RVF is soon to publish an 8-page article on the various Crus Communals, which he thinks will help a lot to bring individual terroirs of Muscadet into good relief, particularly in the French market where Muscadet has been more a generic commodity. Not that anyone around here feels that way, of course. Their CC is from the former “Clos des Noëlles,” and in 2012 these 70 y.o. vines gave only 15 hl/ha. This is a great wine, with amazing persistence on the palate, great intensity and deliciousness. They will leave it 3 years on the lees, but really it was what I wanted to have with lunch that minute.
2011 was perhaps more successful for L-P than for Pepière, based on good showings from Clos des Allees and L d’Or.
Both at the winery and later at the Salon we checked in on some older vintages of L d’Or. They make roughly 12,000 bottles of this in a vintage when they can. I know some of you have these in the cellar, so as a public service I’ll mention that I very much like 2007 and that it begins to show some secondary development. 2010 is softer and perhaps weaker than 2011 but still good. Pierre-Marie seems to like 2009, but it is too soft for me. 2005 is also soft, rich, a low-acid vintage. The 2002 is in a great place now, with a perception of salinity and some more development, but there is no rush with either. The development of the 2002 curiously includes some trimethyldihydronaphthalene, or so it seems both to Pierre-Marie and me. Or I should say that he thinks it smells like Riesling that begins to petrol a bit, and I agree and attribute this to the same chemistry found in Rieslings. He says this is a one-off thing in 2002, they don’t experience it elsewhere, and we speculate fruitlessly for a bit about the weather during 2002 and its implications for secondary metabolites. A ’99 is maybe starting to fall off in the finish, drink up.
With lunch, we tasted a vertical of the Excelsior from those 75 y.o. vines on a SE facing slope of mica-schiste and sand. This will become the Goulaine in future vintages as the Cru Communal becomes official. My notes are brief, but 2009 and 2005 are a little ripe and soft for this consumer, but 2002 is showing great, very savory and umami from all the yummy glutamate and mononucleotides from yeast autolysis. A wonderful palate impression. Maybe time to pull a few of these from the cellar. They didn’t like the wine in 2008, so declassified. In keeping with the vintage here, 2007 is quite good.
There is a new Pueri Solis in 2009. You’ll recall that the 2005 failed to go quite dry. In 2009 the wine is from a different site, but it’s kinda crazy—very tropical on the nose, a wacky different expression of melon. The 2009 also has a bit of rs rounding it out unexpectedly on the finish. They have 3000 bottles. The 2005 is becoming decadent on the nose, all lychee and pineapple and Chris Coad childhood fruit salads. It is rather plush and soft on the finish. It is shockingly good with macarons that were filled with a reduction jelly of 2005 L d’Or at a local patisserie. But I have to warn you, young sommeliers, don’t try this at home. Muscadet is not usually for dessert.
Landron
I caught up with Jo Landron at the Renaissance des AOCs in Angers. He’d brought a couple of tank samples from 2012, and was very enthusiastic about the vintage. His Amphibolite is usually a very light wine, but in this vintage it’s at a wild 12.6%, with a high (for this wine) ta of 4.8 (again, all units tartaric). Ironically, he said that his best sites with warmer soils flowered earlier and caught more of the crappy weather in the spring, while in general bad sites missed some rain and had better yields. But he totally agreed with my 1996 analogy. His 2012 Domaine is also a very fine wine, rich and round (12.6%), but with great structure and equilibrium. Happy days. He also showed 2011 Les Houx, which he plans to bottle in a month or two. This sample was a bit awkward, somewhat reduced and the acid stuck out a bit. He did well with the Fief du Breil in this tougher vintage, though it has a bit of the aforementioned 2011 herbal thing going. He thinks another spring will round it out and plans to bottle it in July. He also showed a 2010 cuvee from a 15hl oak cask, the “Haute Tradition.” It shows a bit of wood tannin in the finish, which isn’t really what I look for in Muscadet.
Bossard/Ecu/Fred
Guy Bossard was next to Jo at the table, but showed no ‘12s. Fred was away when I tasted. His 2011s also show a bit of rosemary or whatever that 2011 thing is. The classique is a very good effort for a tough vintage. The Gneiss is rounder, not very ripe. Orthogneiss is zippy and also richer, more mineral but still slightly herbal, and the acidity pokes out a bit. Granit is long, with mouthcoating mineral texture, but you feel the rain a bit. Good for the vintage. I got another chance to try 2010 Taurus, their cuvee in wood. This isn’t as creamy as it was a year ago, but you can still smell the wood and taste it in the finish, and really, who needs this shit when you could be putting those grapes into the orthogneiss and the granit?
Domaine de Bellevue
I tasted with this guy at the Dive, and liked some of the wines a lot. Other folks were more effusive than I was in conversations after, so maybe find a bottle and try them out. The 2012 Domaine bottling is on gabbro, and it is in 2012 mode, joining good acidity with rich fruit. There is some gabbro minerality there if you look for it, but the wine was good but not totally amazing. He also has some granite-soil vineyards in Clisson (a remarkably picturesque village btw, you would never believe the views of the Chateau from the Best Western). The 2012 is quite warm and rich. He does not have enough wine in his view to join the Cru Communal. The wine is good, but not to my Dive-addled taste totally redolent of granite. There is a VV cuvee from 60 y.o. vines on gabbro. This was impressive and interesting—the gabbro minerality is much more intense, and the 2012 vintage is flattering. He plans to bottle in August. There is also a meh Chardonnay, and a decent enough merlot.
Thus endeth the 2012 Muscadets.
But the other answer is that agriculture is a tough, tough biz. One year it’s the locusts, the next year the frogs, then it rains blood. You know the drill. Vines can’t hide from the weather, and neither can vignerons. 2012 was like that in much of northern France. Several people I asked about it this week said they’d prefer not to talk about it, they were on to 2013, looking ahead not back. You probably already knew about the frost in the Touraine in April; it was tough. Hit a bit sporadically, but it hit many people hard. You may not have heard about the crappy flowering due to lots of late spring rain that came on top of that. This led to a poor and unevenly-timed set for grapes throughout northern France. Then there was the rain all summer. Yeesh. Not the glamorous life of the Staglins for most of the people I know, none of the sitting out on the patio in the warm sunshine while José brings you another refreshing beverage. Much more time on the tractor spraying for mildew.
I had a general sense of this, and once again, I was almost discouraged from going. You’d hate to have to smile while people whose work you admire pour you wines that you can’t. (Zeugma alert). But it was a somewhat calm window at work, so I jumped through it and went.
I’m still reflecting a bit on what I tasted and saw, but a few generalizations for your consideration and refutation.
* When a group of us visited the gracious and kind Francois Pinon, he told us that he would make only sparkling wines and a little sec in 2012. He handed out glasses for tasting that were oddly small, little cordial glasses. After we all had them and he was pouring vin clair for 2012 fizz, he said he’d given us tiny glasses to fix in our minds what a small crop it was. A potent metaphor. This outcome was typical of later-harvested varieties in 2012 in the Loire, particularly reds and chenin. Small crops, and they battled rain while they picked. We got bigger glasses later. Some folks had half a normal crop, another Touraine grower told me her yields were 5-12 hl/ha in different fields, and that another harvest like this would sink her.
* Earlier-harvested varieties did much better, sometimes very well. The very small crop gave vigorous grapes that withstood the assaults of the summer weather very well. I am ahead of myself, but based on tank samples, Marc Ollivier may have had his best vintage since 1996 or maybe 1990, depending. He harvested ripe grapes in good sun and the crop was in before the later rains. Not so in Vouvray. Luneau said they had rain every week in May, June, and July, but they still made great wines. Nady Foucault complained most about hail.
* 2011 was also not such an easy vintage, but it gave very different grapes in many places. By the end of my travels I convinced myself that there was a little green note that was found in many wines of this vintage whether white or red. It seemed a bit of a signature, though it was not ubiquitous.
* Do you remember Michael Crichton’s book from the ‘80s, Rising Sun? It was a novel about how the Japanese were pretty much going to have all our cash, all our women, and all our self-respect in next to no time. The US and Europe were maybe going to have jobs sweeping up, but that was about it. Anyhow, I remember reading it at the time and thinking in my one-day-to-be-Wall-St.-Joe way, ”Man, this *has* to be the top of this market. Time to short the Japanese.” I didn’t really figure out a way to do it, but it was the beginning of their so-called Lost Decade. What was that other one from 1999, “Dow 36,000”? Anyhow, this is a long-winded way of saying that guys like Bettane who have lately been slamming natural wine are very much lagging indicators. Tasting a number of natural winemakers whose work used not to delight me because of various pesky wine flaws, I was totally impressed this trip by how they have cleaned up their winemaking without losing the “natural” excitement in their wines. I’m sure you can still find crappy producers, but a guy like Rene Mosse made some of my favorite wines of the trip as one example, and Noella Morantin’s wines are much improved (though still not exactly my thing) as another.
* It is not quite news, but 2009 reds continue to be rich and ripe, and 2010 reds in many places are classical delights. 2011 much more variable and tough.
* I have a new bee in my bonnet, put there by a couple of NYC’s most prominent retailers. More on the mouse later. Probably much more.
* I had a funny conversation with Didier Barouillet yesterday where we agreed that at Clos Rougeard there wasn’t really any point in talking about good and bad vintages. They were all good, they were just remarkably different from each other. We could all aspire to do such good work.
* The lysozyme wars continue.
* I also tasted a bunch of wine at various shows from diverse locations outside the Loire. I hope I have time to write things up.
* Disclaimer language—few of these wines were tasted in careful analytical circumstances. Few 2012s are finished at this point. I do my best, but ripping through a zillion wines at the Dive is not the same as standing around Marc Ollivier’s cellar tasting 10 different tanks from the same vintage and really getting a sense of things (if not of the finished wines!). But I would not be surprised to learn that I was flat-out wrong about some wines. My health was pretty good most of the trip, except for one unfortunate 24-hour period that fortunately coincided with a decent hotel.
Muscadet
Olliver
I was fortunate to try 2011 and 2012 Muscadets from most of my favorite producers, and some good wines from a new guy as well. The best folks did well in a very tough vintage in 2011, but the 2012s that I got to try were remarkable. Marc Ollivier said that his first picking (usually not his best wines) came in at 12.6% natural and 6.4 grams of total acidity. So a very unusually ripe wine with higher than normal acidity. These grapes are usually 1.0-1.5% lower in alcohol (as a crude indication of ripeness) when they come in, and 6.4 grams of ta is satisfyingly high. You can smell the sunshine in this wine, it speaks eloquently of a great August. Another harvest from Pepière has a crazy dose of ripe yellow fruit. It is 12.4% and lower in acid than the first cuvee, but it still has great flavors and great structure, as does a third vat. My note on 2012 Clos des Briords says, “Wow, total fabulousness.” The wines are delicious already, though doubtless they will continue to evolve. Marc’s yields were about 20 hl/ha. I think the AOC allows 55, and I suspect many shoot for more.
We tasted 2011s from bottle—the first bottling of the Pepière (ask Kevin McKenna how to tell which is which. JUST KIDDING.) has fairly prominent 2011 herbal flavors. This bottling sold through months ago, and most of what you see now will be the considerably superior 2nd bottling. Marc said that blending 2011s was unusually difficult. The Briords also has an herbal hint, but it does also have a long and satisfying finish. Gras Moutons shows best of all on this day, with more richness, better integration, and perhaps better edge.
The 2010 Briords is classic stuff, though Marc complains of bottle shock, and it might have showed a bit closed. To calibrate you against 2012, it has 5.5-6 grams of ta. He also showed us a 2010 Ch. Thébaud from vat, it will be bottled this spring or summer after warmer weather makes the lees more active for a while. He might get 10k bottles of this in a good year. The wine is totally fabulous, “plus tonique” as someone said. Who knows, maybe it treats malaria, too. There is also a “3” in 2010, it is 1/3 from Clisson, 1/3 from Ch. cuvée. It was originally a serendipitous cuvee, he had extra Clisson that he didn’t want to blend, and there was also wine from the plateau above the Clos des Briords that is good in warm years. He put them together more not to waste the wine than with any particular idea, and the fermentation was very slow. It will find bottles around the end of this year, but it still needs time. There is a slight bitter note now that I imagine will resolve with further elevage, but it will remain a powerful wine. He keeps it 3 years on the lees due to the influence of his friend Michel Bregeon.
The 2009 Clisson is relatively low in acidity, but it has a phenolic note that is almost a bit bitter in the finish that helps compensate. It is nice wine and quite rich, but 2010 is more my style. I would not be at all surprised to find that many people reverse my preference. The Ch. Thébaud is showing more dimensions right now than the Clisson—more aromatics, more structure, very very good wine in a great place now, but one with a very long future. The 2009 “3” was just bottled in November. It’s rounder, softer from the lees, and still a bit monochromatic. Marc feels it is still settling into bottle and needs time, and I daresay he’s right.
We moved into the orgy of older wines, including the Clos des Briords vertical. I was more concerned to enjoy myself than to be analytical, but I’d mention that ’07 showed very classic, ’05 begins to give a bit of maturity, with extra complexity on a ripe medium-acid wine; the 2002 was unusually advanced, I hope not premox; ’99 is its usual self and it is probably time to drink more than hold these. My note on ’96 is “OMG, died and gone to heaven.” ’95 is softer, of course, but very pretty. We had a spectacular bottle of ’93, maybe the best ever. ’92 was much leaner, but still pleasant, ’89 ripe and very good, and the ’88 still fresh. I would also mention a great 1985 regular wine (’88 was the first vintage of Briords).
Marc and Rémi are also auditioning a potential third partner, a very nice woman named Gwen. We’ll see how that goes. As we drove through his vineyards we discussed that Guy Bossard and Michel Bregeon had both found successors named Fred, but that he had been unable to find a Fred of his own.
Luneau-Papin
The weather at Luneau was not so different from Pepière, I won’t take you through it again, but they shared blue skies in August. Clos des Allées is lovely in 2012 from vat, not clear yet, they will bottle after it warms up a bit and gets further benefit from the lees. But a very fine vintage of this great bargain. Pierres Blanches was harvested September 23rd, and has some of those yellow fruits, but also unusually good acidity and texture. Pierre de la Grange is a blend and 60% of their production. Solid stuff. The serpentine-soiled vines of the Terres de Pierre gave ripe wine at 12.5%, but also typically lower in acidity at 4.3-4.4 grams. These wines also show more color. A little reduction is normal at this point in the elevage. The Clos du Poyet parcel of the Pierres Blanches is also good, but I don’t think they will bottle it separately. Their Cru Communal “Goulaine,” (fka “Schistes de Goulaine”, but no mention of soil is allowed). Pierre-Marie was pleased because the RVF is soon to publish an 8-page article on the various Crus Communals, which he thinks will help a lot to bring individual terroirs of Muscadet into good relief, particularly in the French market where Muscadet has been more a generic commodity. Not that anyone around here feels that way, of course. Their CC is from the former “Clos des Noëlles,” and in 2012 these 70 y.o. vines gave only 15 hl/ha. This is a great wine, with amazing persistence on the palate, great intensity and deliciousness. They will leave it 3 years on the lees, but really it was what I wanted to have with lunch that minute.
2011 was perhaps more successful for L-P than for Pepière, based on good showings from Clos des Allees and L d’Or.
Both at the winery and later at the Salon we checked in on some older vintages of L d’Or. They make roughly 12,000 bottles of this in a vintage when they can. I know some of you have these in the cellar, so as a public service I’ll mention that I very much like 2007 and that it begins to show some secondary development. 2010 is softer and perhaps weaker than 2011 but still good. Pierre-Marie seems to like 2009, but it is too soft for me. 2005 is also soft, rich, a low-acid vintage. The 2002 is in a great place now, with a perception of salinity and some more development, but there is no rush with either. The development of the 2002 curiously includes some trimethyldihydronaphthalene, or so it seems both to Pierre-Marie and me. Or I should say that he thinks it smells like Riesling that begins to petrol a bit, and I agree and attribute this to the same chemistry found in Rieslings. He says this is a one-off thing in 2002, they don’t experience it elsewhere, and we speculate fruitlessly for a bit about the weather during 2002 and its implications for secondary metabolites. A ’99 is maybe starting to fall off in the finish, drink up.
With lunch, we tasted a vertical of the Excelsior from those 75 y.o. vines on a SE facing slope of mica-schiste and sand. This will become the Goulaine in future vintages as the Cru Communal becomes official. My notes are brief, but 2009 and 2005 are a little ripe and soft for this consumer, but 2002 is showing great, very savory and umami from all the yummy glutamate and mononucleotides from yeast autolysis. A wonderful palate impression. Maybe time to pull a few of these from the cellar. They didn’t like the wine in 2008, so declassified. In keeping with the vintage here, 2007 is quite good.
There is a new Pueri Solis in 2009. You’ll recall that the 2005 failed to go quite dry. In 2009 the wine is from a different site, but it’s kinda crazy—very tropical on the nose, a wacky different expression of melon. The 2009 also has a bit of rs rounding it out unexpectedly on the finish. They have 3000 bottles. The 2005 is becoming decadent on the nose, all lychee and pineapple and Chris Coad childhood fruit salads. It is rather plush and soft on the finish. It is shockingly good with macarons that were filled with a reduction jelly of 2005 L d’Or at a local patisserie. But I have to warn you, young sommeliers, don’t try this at home. Muscadet is not usually for dessert.
Landron
I caught up with Jo Landron at the Renaissance des AOCs in Angers. He’d brought a couple of tank samples from 2012, and was very enthusiastic about the vintage. His Amphibolite is usually a very light wine, but in this vintage it’s at a wild 12.6%, with a high (for this wine) ta of 4.8 (again, all units tartaric). Ironically, he said that his best sites with warmer soils flowered earlier and caught more of the crappy weather in the spring, while in general bad sites missed some rain and had better yields. But he totally agreed with my 1996 analogy. His 2012 Domaine is also a very fine wine, rich and round (12.6%), but with great structure and equilibrium. Happy days. He also showed 2011 Les Houx, which he plans to bottle in a month or two. This sample was a bit awkward, somewhat reduced and the acid stuck out a bit. He did well with the Fief du Breil in this tougher vintage, though it has a bit of the aforementioned 2011 herbal thing going. He thinks another spring will round it out and plans to bottle it in July. He also showed a 2010 cuvee from a 15hl oak cask, the “Haute Tradition.” It shows a bit of wood tannin in the finish, which isn’t really what I look for in Muscadet.
Bossard/Ecu/Fred
Guy Bossard was next to Jo at the table, but showed no ‘12s. Fred was away when I tasted. His 2011s also show a bit of rosemary or whatever that 2011 thing is. The classique is a very good effort for a tough vintage. The Gneiss is rounder, not very ripe. Orthogneiss is zippy and also richer, more mineral but still slightly herbal, and the acidity pokes out a bit. Granit is long, with mouthcoating mineral texture, but you feel the rain a bit. Good for the vintage. I got another chance to try 2010 Taurus, their cuvee in wood. This isn’t as creamy as it was a year ago, but you can still smell the wood and taste it in the finish, and really, who needs this shit when you could be putting those grapes into the orthogneiss and the granit?
Domaine de Bellevue
I tasted with this guy at the Dive, and liked some of the wines a lot. Other folks were more effusive than I was in conversations after, so maybe find a bottle and try them out. The 2012 Domaine bottling is on gabbro, and it is in 2012 mode, joining good acidity with rich fruit. There is some gabbro minerality there if you look for it, but the wine was good but not totally amazing. He also has some granite-soil vineyards in Clisson (a remarkably picturesque village btw, you would never believe the views of the Chateau from the Best Western). The 2012 is quite warm and rich. He does not have enough wine in his view to join the Cru Communal. The wine is good, but not to my Dive-addled taste totally redolent of granite. There is a VV cuvee from 60 y.o. vines on gabbro. This was impressive and interesting—the gabbro minerality is much more intense, and the 2012 vintage is flattering. He plans to bottle in August. There is also a meh Chardonnay, and a decent enough merlot.
Thus endeth the 2012 Muscadets.