The Wonderful 2009 Chinons from Bernard and Matthieu Baudry - La Croix Boissee Has Arrived!

10/26/11 - 

(Photo: Eben Lillie, Bernard Baudry, Charles Joguet, and Matthieu Baudry)

One of our greatest pleasures each year is our tasting with Bernard and Matthieu Baudry in Chinon. The Baudrys are warm and thoughtful people which is reflected in their wines. Their expressions of the varied terroirs in Chinon are precise and careful, with the vinifications and aging suiting each parcel, from the Les Granges, from sandy soils near the Vienne to the great Croix Boissée, from a superb hillside plot of clay and limestone. It's been a great pleasure to work with the Baudrys over the past 20 years and to see Bernard's son, Matthieu, become such a wonderful young man and thoughtful wine-maker alongside his father. The estate has progressed over the years, acquiring new parcels, now working organically in the vineyard and constantly fine-tuning their vinifications. Hand-harvesting and wild-yeast fermentations, of course. Which brings us to the 2009 vintage, a year in which each wine from this estate seemed to reach near-perfection, bringing smiles of intense appreciation both times we've tasted through them. This offering is prompted by the arrival of the 2009 Croix Boissée, a superb wine that will need five or six years in the cellar and will drink beautifully for twenty-plus years. And don't ingnore the inexpensive "Domaine" bottling, a delicious wine for current drinking that will be lovely in 2020 also!