Savennières and Chenin Dreams

My final day in the Loire I rose early and went for a jog.  Clouds hung low and light rain fell intermittently, spattering my glasses.  I ran past the Château and wound down the cobblestone road that zigzagged down into the old city sprawling on the river's bank.  I ran along  the river before doubling back to toil back up the steep hill.  I ate my tartine -- toast with butter and homemade jam -- and milky coffee, and hit the road to Savennières.  I had a meeting at Domaine des Baumard, about an hour's drive from Saumur.  I followed my GPS out onto two-way highways lined with great trees across flat fields stretching endlessly into grey mist.  Rain beat gently on my windshield.  

I came into the town of Rochefort-sur-Loire, cobbled and quaint with a stone church in the center like most of them.  I drove up and down a tiny street more like an alley, passing an old man sitting on a bench at the side of the road.  By my second pass, he was staring at me openly, so I rolled down my car window and said, "Bonjour!  Je cherche pour Domaine des Baumard!  Vous savez...?"  He hemmed and hawed, deep in thought, then barked out some kindly directions to where he thought it was.  I was nearly there--I just had to slip through the gate off the alleyway.  

Immediately I realized I was in a different sort of estate than the rustic and modern ones I'd visited.  The beech trees drooped their branches over the pale gravel drive leading up to the gracious house of pale stone, and the large shrubs were trimmed into the shape of wine bottles. I met a kindly woman who would be conducting the tour.  She spoke no English, but I assured her I would listen, though my spoken French was limited.  She led me into a spare, high-ceilinged room with parquet floors, murals and a few paintings.  An Oriental rug and several imposing cushioned chairs with burnished, curved arms sat around a table in the middle of the room, with wines arranged on it.  A lacquered wooden cabinet stood at the end of the room, with a display of the domaine's wines arranged on a wooden tree like clusters of grapes on a vine--except these were the final, bottled expression of the grapes.

We tasted several crémants, white and rosé, starting with the "Cart Turquoise," a non-vintage blend of Chenin, Cabernet Franc, and Chardonnay.  Next was the "Tirage 2010," a blend of Cabernet Franc and Chardonnay, followed by "Carte Corail," a rosé of Cabernet Franc and Grolleau.  The final sparkling was a pale rosé in frosted glass, also of Cab Franc and Grolleau.  We then moved to the Savennières still wines--Chenin time!  We began with the 2014 Clos de Saint Yves, a fruity and mineral Chenin, the classic wine of the domaine.  Its minerality was evident after just two years but it could be aged for 10-20 years.  Next up were two vintages of the Clos du Papillon, a prime vineyard in the shape of a butterfly wing, from schist, sandstone, and sandy soils.  I tasted the 2010 and 2007 vintage.  It was amazing the layers of depth the 2007 had over the 2010.  The stone fruit was deepened, and the honey and wet stone flavors were more resonant.  The final wine in the grouping was the "Trie Spéciale," from the 2014 vintage.  This wine is only made when the vintage shows great potential, from multiple passes, or "tries" through the vineyard for the best fruit.  It was rich, bursting with ripe fruit with that bracing, sullen stony backdrop.  I wanted to nonchalantly order a case for my cellar and ship it back to the US...but my travel budget wasn't quite so flush.  I just sipped it slowly.  Richer wines were waiting.

Carte d'Or Côteaux du Layon was the first sweet wine we tasted.  Côteaux du Layon is an appellation in Anjou renowned for sweet wines.  The Carte d'Or was breathtaking--sweet and honeyed with ripe peach and spice and austere, chalky stone melding in the glass.  Like sex on an early summer day, dreaming of the melancholy of winter.  I wanted to drink it forever, but we were about to go deeper down the sweet wine rabbit hole.  
Quarts de Chaume is an enclave within Chaume, a village within the Côteaux du Layon region, but one with its own AOC, such is the staggering depth and succulence of its wines.  It and Bonnezeaux (another AOC within the AOC) produce among the best and most age-worthy sweet wines in the world.  

We began with the Quarts de Chaume 2011.  It was like nectar, so concentrated with the flavor of ripe peaches and honey and flowers, if you dripped that ripe ooze down a rough wall of schist.  The acidity should've been like a razor but instead it sliced through the ripe, sweet peaches like butter and lifted them up up up into ethereal, refreshing bliss.  (I realize I sound like a moron, but these wines could make you mad with pleasure.)

Quarts de Chaume 2009 and 2007 were next up.  My tasting notes here read "swOOooOn."  I'll spare you further rhapsodic moans, but the basics are thus: the only thing better than fine sweet Chenin is aged sweet Chenin.  The stony minerality takes on a darker, more somber tone but doesn't juxtapose more with the acidity and sweetness, it just sinks deeper in.  Deeper and darker and richer.

Around this point in the tasting Florent Baumard came striding in from the harvest.  He was a short, strapping man with a kindly, fair face and a gentle, gallant air.  He spoke French briefly but switched to English when he realized the extent of my French.  He asked if I wanted to tour the vineyards with him.  

"Uh, yes!  If you have time," I added quickly.

"You are a brand ambassador for us, so I think it is important," he answered.

Away we went in his vintage Jeep.  We bumped and throttled uphill into the rocky vineyards, and he told me about his history, how he didn't used to want the domaine that his father had restored in the 1950s.  It had been in his family for many generations, and he wasn't planning to add his name to the list of stewards.  He finally caved however, returning from university brimming with ideas and opinions of how things should be done.  

"I was very French; I thought I knew everything," he smiled.  

I was only a little in love with him; he spoke English with the faintest British accent and was aristocratic and gracious.

Eventually he learned to work with and not against his father, and now runs the estate like, well, a boss.  He showed me his vineyards stretching down towards the town of Savennières, and we looked at the Chenin grapes hanging on the vine, some fuzzy with noble rot.  

"Eat some!"  He urged, and when I hesitated for a split second he laughed.  "Are you scared?"
I slowly chewed the sweet, fuzzy grapes.  They were completely delicious.  We drove to another vineyard, this one facing out into the valley the Layon River flows through, which creates the foggy, humid conditions needed for noble rot.

I told him I was going to the Mosel next, and he raised an eyebrow.  

"The Mosel makes very fine wines," he mused.  "We had a vintage, 2004, which was very cool, and the wine was almost like a Riesling from the Mosel.  Very delicate."

When we came to his cellar he led me into the low dark caves, full of stacked bottles.  He plunged into the depths and emerged with a bottle of 2007 Quarts de Chaume and a bottle of 2004 Clos du Papillon.  

"Now you can taste it and see if it is like the Mosel wines," he insisted.  

He had to get back to harvest.  He crinkled his kind eyes at me and wished me a safe journey to Germany.  I thanked him profusely for taking time to show me his vineyards.  I crunched down the pale gravel and got into my shiny rental, stowing the bottles lovingly in the passenger seat.  I drove away from the estate, my eyes starry with Chenin dreams.