Carl Steefel
Carl Steefel
Part of the objective of a visit to Domaine Vatan in Chavignol in my own mind was to try to resolve how they could make Sauvignon Blanc so different in character (and quality) from many of the other vignerons in the area and around the world. My own experience has been the occasional bottle of Sancerre over the years, plus a one day visit to Chavignol about 5 years ago where we toured Domaine Henri Bourgeois. I have a problem with the profile of Sauvignon Blanc (as many seem to do), since I find them often aggressive, verging in cases of better ripeness to more acidic tropical fruits (pineapple), in cases of lesser ripeness to a harsher grassy character. With some age, these examples do improve, as I saw with some of the older Henri Bourgeois wines I tasted, but I cannot say that the aging did all that much more than soften those aggressive edges. Probably I have been sampling the lower end too much there in the past, although a half-glass of perfumed, delicately textured Francois Cotat Sancerre tasted at RN74 about a year ago gave me a considerably different view of what might be accomplished.
More recently (May 2016), in Champaign, Illinois amidst the corn fields, I found the odd bottle of the 2012 Vatan Clos de la Néore at a wine bar/restaurant. It is easiest to simply reproduce my notes from that tasting, but suffice it to say, the bottle was a revelation with its minty character and suave papaya/guava notes (no shrill Disneyesque tropical pineapple here, this is the south Pacific paradise of Gauguin):
The delicate aromas of mint leaves are the first to express themselves, but as the wine opens in the glass, the fruit begins to show itself, with notes of papaya, orange, and apple taking on a floral character that merge with the grassy Sauvignon Blanc signatures. In the mouth, this takes on volume and richness without seeming to take on weight, the individual themes retaining their identities as the seductive tropical fruit flavors of papaya (and guava?) provide counterpoint to the more assertive grassy northern orchard fruit. Incredible delicacy, detail and multi-layering here, yet in a symphonic mix that finally produces the impression of impeccable balance. The gap between this wine and garden variety Sancerre is mind boggling, enough to have one thinking a god or demi-god is lurking in those Vatan vineyards and cellars...
After meeting Anne Vatan at the Domaine at 11 AM, she opened a bottle of the 2015 Vatan Clos de la Néore, a perfectly balanced (bien equilibré) if young Monts Damnés, with good volume, chalky acidity, and grassy scents on the nose that I probably could have identified blind as Sauvignon Blanc, but none (at least yet) of the perfumed minty nose I was expecting. Maybe just a bit young, but Anne Vatan thought it was also the vintage signature, so we followed up shortly thereafter with the 2014 Vatan Clos de la Néore, which seemed to confirm that Anne Vatan was correct and the vintages were just different. Here was my first frisson of the day, nothing reluctant here about the aromatics or the expression in the mouth, with remarkably expressive menthol or perhaps closer to wild nettles inner mouth perfume balancing the bitter almond and lemon oil flavors. This wine has the signature Vatan Clos de la Néore richness and ripeness, despite the bitter notes on the palate which might seem to some to be more compatible with a thinner, more aggressive wine. The well-drained soils composed of chalk + clay with its cation exchange population seem to buffer and enrich the natural acidity of the Sauvignon Blanc grape, at least when the ripeness is as good as it is here. I strongly suspect this is a great wine in the making
Next up, it was back to the 2012 Vatan Clos de la Néore to check a bottle never removed from the Domaine versus the one tasted in the Illinois corn fields. I found the 2012 to have a more reticent nose than the 2014 (or the 2012 in Illinois), although the wild nettle/mint + chalky lemon oil did emerge gradually with time in the glass.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a mystery bottle on the table. I thought I heard Anne Vatan say something about the 2006, but even the initial taste seemed to strongly suggest an older wine. She then informed us that is was not the 2006, so I was free to speculate on what it might be, without much other than comments from others on older Vatan (e.g., the 2002) to go on. Turns out it was the 1996, which according to Anne Vatan never made it to the USA because the boat on which it was being shipped sank somewhere. Here one is not apparently on Gauguin’s south Pacific island, but some other distant island kingdom like that of Numenor, an impression perhaps reinforced by the feeling I had between 30 and 60 seconds on the finish that I would certainly live to 250 years old, like the Sea Kings of old. My only regret here is that I could not easily make the connection between the minty, brambly, chalk oil 2014 and this much older wine. Here the nose is positively explosive, with yellow flower and lemon oil inner mouth perfume complementing the round, palate-coating/enveloping richness and energizing acidity in the mouth. Double blind, I might have identified this as an older Chablis (the 1996 Dauvisssat les Clos comes to mind), except for the lesser influence of citrus and tidal pool aromas, a tendency toward yellow rather than white flowers, and the signature (?) bitter almond/wild mint that dominates the long finish. One of the four greatest white wines I have tasted, I am still savoring this the next day. And certainly this is a strong argument in cellaring these wines where possible, although the 2014 will be hard to resist even as a youngster
In the end, I cannot say I am all that much closer to understanding how Vatan does it, but certainly human thresholds are at work here, as well as the natural variables in wine making. The influence of the chalk-clay soil developed on the steep slopes of Mont Damnés and the very low yields (average about 40 hectoliters per hectare, according to Anne Vatan) are indisputable. The soils are thin, with a clay layer near the top (the residual of chalk formation?), on average about 0.5 meter, and the roots penetrate fractures in the otherwise solid bedrock. Other than that, it does not seem that Anne Vatan has changed much in the winemaking from what her father did, other than to replace the very old oak barrels used by her father with “vitrine” (glass or ceramic, if I got it right)
For the full post (complete with a couple of photos and proper Web formatting), see:
More recently (May 2016), in Champaign, Illinois amidst the corn fields, I found the odd bottle of the 2012 Vatan Clos de la Néore at a wine bar/restaurant. It is easiest to simply reproduce my notes from that tasting, but suffice it to say, the bottle was a revelation with its minty character and suave papaya/guava notes (no shrill Disneyesque tropical pineapple here, this is the south Pacific paradise of Gauguin):
The delicate aromas of mint leaves are the first to express themselves, but as the wine opens in the glass, the fruit begins to show itself, with notes of papaya, orange, and apple taking on a floral character that merge with the grassy Sauvignon Blanc signatures. In the mouth, this takes on volume and richness without seeming to take on weight, the individual themes retaining their identities as the seductive tropical fruit flavors of papaya (and guava?) provide counterpoint to the more assertive grassy northern orchard fruit. Incredible delicacy, detail and multi-layering here, yet in a symphonic mix that finally produces the impression of impeccable balance. The gap between this wine and garden variety Sancerre is mind boggling, enough to have one thinking a god or demi-god is lurking in those Vatan vineyards and cellars...
After meeting Anne Vatan at the Domaine at 11 AM, she opened a bottle of the 2015 Vatan Clos de la Néore, a perfectly balanced (bien equilibré) if young Monts Damnés, with good volume, chalky acidity, and grassy scents on the nose that I probably could have identified blind as Sauvignon Blanc, but none (at least yet) of the perfumed minty nose I was expecting. Maybe just a bit young, but Anne Vatan thought it was also the vintage signature, so we followed up shortly thereafter with the 2014 Vatan Clos de la Néore, which seemed to confirm that Anne Vatan was correct and the vintages were just different. Here was my first frisson of the day, nothing reluctant here about the aromatics or the expression in the mouth, with remarkably expressive menthol or perhaps closer to wild nettles inner mouth perfume balancing the bitter almond and lemon oil flavors. This wine has the signature Vatan Clos de la Néore richness and ripeness, despite the bitter notes on the palate which might seem to some to be more compatible with a thinner, more aggressive wine. The well-drained soils composed of chalk + clay with its cation exchange population seem to buffer and enrich the natural acidity of the Sauvignon Blanc grape, at least when the ripeness is as good as it is here. I strongly suspect this is a great wine in the making
Next up, it was back to the 2012 Vatan Clos de la Néore to check a bottle never removed from the Domaine versus the one tasted in the Illinois corn fields. I found the 2012 to have a more reticent nose than the 2014 (or the 2012 in Illinois), although the wild nettle/mint + chalky lemon oil did emerge gradually with time in the glass.
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a mystery bottle on the table. I thought I heard Anne Vatan say something about the 2006, but even the initial taste seemed to strongly suggest an older wine. She then informed us that is was not the 2006, so I was free to speculate on what it might be, without much other than comments from others on older Vatan (e.g., the 2002) to go on. Turns out it was the 1996, which according to Anne Vatan never made it to the USA because the boat on which it was being shipped sank somewhere. Here one is not apparently on Gauguin’s south Pacific island, but some other distant island kingdom like that of Numenor, an impression perhaps reinforced by the feeling I had between 30 and 60 seconds on the finish that I would certainly live to 250 years old, like the Sea Kings of old. My only regret here is that I could not easily make the connection between the minty, brambly, chalk oil 2014 and this much older wine. Here the nose is positively explosive, with yellow flower and lemon oil inner mouth perfume complementing the round, palate-coating/enveloping richness and energizing acidity in the mouth. Double blind, I might have identified this as an older Chablis (the 1996 Dauvisssat les Clos comes to mind), except for the lesser influence of citrus and tidal pool aromas, a tendency toward yellow rather than white flowers, and the signature (?) bitter almond/wild mint that dominates the long finish. One of the four greatest white wines I have tasted, I am still savoring this the next day. And certainly this is a strong argument in cellaring these wines where possible, although the 2014 will be hard to resist even as a youngster
In the end, I cannot say I am all that much closer to understanding how Vatan does it, but certainly human thresholds are at work here, as well as the natural variables in wine making. The influence of the chalk-clay soil developed on the steep slopes of Mont Damnés and the very low yields (average about 40 hectoliters per hectare, according to Anne Vatan) are indisputable. The soils are thin, with a clay layer near the top (the residual of chalk formation?), on average about 0.5 meter, and the roots penetrate fractures in the otherwise solid bedrock. Other than that, it does not seem that Anne Vatan has changed much in the winemaking from what her father did, other than to replace the very old oak barrels used by her father with “vitrine” (glass or ceramic, if I got it right)
For the full post (complete with a couple of photos and proper Web formatting), see:
Loading…
fullfathomfour.com
