Winemaker Notes
The vineyard is named “the wooden cross,” because drinking wine from its vines is a religious experience. The real miracle awaits—you would be wise to save some.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
Tasted as a barrel sample, the 2020 La Croix Boissée is all about its primary redcurrant and blackcurrant fruit at this stage. Its exciting texture is clear for all to see - it has bucket loads of concentration wrapped in a supple yet focused package. There's excellent purity of fruit while the abundant chalky tannins and mouthwatering acidity provide the structural components required for a long life, despite its appeal even in barrel.
Barrel Sample: 93-95 -
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chinon La Croix Boissée is derived from vines planted on south-facing limestone soils. Evoking aromas of spices, dark berries and flowers intertwined with meaty notes, it’s tense and chiseled with powdery tannins complemented by velvety tannins and carnal notes, resulting in a robust and dense finish.
Cabernet Franc, a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, is the subtler and more delicate of the Cabernets. Today Cabernet Franc produces outstanding single varietal wines across the wine-producing world. Somm Secret—One of California's best-kept secrets is the Happy Canyon appellation of Santa Barbara. Here Cabernet Franc shines as a single varietal wine or in blends, expressing sumptuous fruit, savory aromas and polished tannins.
An important red wine appellation in the Touraine district of the Loire, Chinon produces fanciful, light-bodied reds from the Cabernet Franc grape. Chinon also makes charming rosés from the same grape as well as white wines from Chenin blanc. But the reds give the area its fame. Often scented with fresh herbs, black tea and violets, Chinon reds show a lovely combination of fruit and acidity. However, styles have become more concentrated and ripe in recent years from improvements in vineyard management. Modern methods include planting grass between vineyard rows, using higher trellises and deleafing to increase sunlight to berries and therefore improve ripening. Even still, red Chinon is intended to be a light to medium bodied, refreshing wine to be enjoyed in its youth.
Fuller-bodied Chinons come from vineyard sites on the clay and tuffeau limestone slopes, usually from the southern exposed slopes of Cravant-les-Coteaux, and the plateau above Beaumont. Lighter styled wines come from the sand and gravel vineyards near the Loire or Vienne Rivers with the most refined examples coming from the area around Panzoult