2020 Chidaine Montlouis-sur-Loire "Les Bournais," and "Clos du Breuil!"
6/28/2022
Clos du Breuil in the center, Les Bournais upper right.
2020 is another great vintage for the dry Montlouis cuvées from François and Manuela Chidaine, featuring the superb "Les Bournais," now recognized as one of the very finest Chenin Blancs of the Loire! In 1989 François discovered a mostly abandoned vineyard near a cliff overlooking the Loire called "Les Bournais" named after a unique type of clay/limestone soil that doesn't occur elsewhere in Montlouis. He called it a "magical place," and planted vines there in the late 1990s. Even the first vintages from young vines impressed us with complex aromatics (including hints of red and pink fruits!) and a dense and silky palate - it has been a favorite at Chambers Street since the 2005 vintage and we are happy to offer a limited quantity of the beautiful 2020.
2020 "Clos du Breuil" is another superb - and more typical - dry Montlouis produced by the Chidaines, on clay/silex soils with white limestone "tuffeau" bedrock. "Clos du Breuil" is a single vineyard near the winery with 60 year-old vines. The wine offers an elegant crystalline palate with subtle white fruits and fabulous mineral notes in the vibrant finish. These are superb food wines - great pairings with griled fish, lobster, shellfish and goat cheeses! And both wines wll benefit from 10 to 15 years of aging.
François and Manuela have been pioneers in organic and biodynamic farming in the Loire Valley. After taking over from his father in 1989, François converted to organic agriculture in 1992 and to biodynamics in 1999. Today, the Chidaines embrace "regnerative agriculture," a no-till farming approach (no plowing) where permanent cover crops of indigenous and sown plants coexist with the vines, improving the rate at which CO2 is removed from the atmosphere and sequestered in the soil. Regenerative farming returns carbon, nitrogen and organic matter into the ground, where it feeds the teeming flora and fauna and microbial life of a living soil, generating the nutrients and micronutrients essential to life.
Winemakers all over the world are turning to limited or no-till farming to bring their soils back to life and produce better wine - and in so doing they are participating in the most practical and effective way to reduce atmospheric CO2!
-David Lillie
