A trip to the immensely diverse Loire valley provides a welcome respite to the rife speculation surrounding Bordeaux 2009 prices and England's chances in the World Cup. I am here to taste the new red white and rose 2009s and take another look at some of the red 2008s in bottle. My (already very great) admiration for some of the Loire's top growers has just got greater. Not only does their fervent passion see them produce excellent wine in even the most challenging of climactic conditions but they also have a distinct awareness of market realities and the standard of competition that exists in the form of Bordeaux Burgundy and the new world. I can't think of any other region that has so many growers who know so much about the top wines from the Cote d'Or or the Cru Classe of Bordeaux!
Much ground has been covered already: Coteaux de Layon, Saumur Chanmpigny, Bourgueil, Chinon, Montlouis, Vouvray and some Touraine wines in Noyers sur Loire, so it makes picking out highlights difficult. One of them has to be the first day with the large and charismatic Jo Pithon (pictured.) After a rogue bat briefly interrupts our tasting in Jo's cellars I taste one of the Loire's great but unknown whites, 2008 Anjou Coteaux des Treilles, a vineyard with volcanic soils that has a strata of coal several metres below the surface. Seek it out. For me it is one of the Loire's top dry whites along side Taille aux Loups Remus and the Pouilly Fumes from Didier Dagueneau.
Another high point has been the reds, namely the 2009s,(surprise surprise!) but also the 2008s. The 09s are intense ripe and suave, dense but with finesse and what's more there is no talk of raising (already very reasonable) prices by 50 or even 15%! Yannick Amirault, Domaine de la Butte and Joguet have all performed extraordinarily well. Even all of their 2008s were showing quite brilliantly - all ripe fruit and silk - not as massive as the 09s but they are certainly no weaklings and are beautifully refreshing to boot. So 2009 is one of the "greats" for Loire reds like 2005 or 2003. It also looks very promising for the sweeties, too, the best since 1989 according to Huet's Noel Pinguet.
So much pleasure its almost exhausting, and I haven't even got to Vincent Pinard, Lucien Crochet, Francois Cotat and Didier Dagueneau yet, thats for tomorrow.
I'm putting my head on the block here, but what I have seen over the last few days underlines the huge strides the Loire has made in the last 5-10 years. The valley is the source of some of the world's great red and white wines whether from perceived "great" vintages or not, its now becoming foolish to ignore them.
