Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Chinon Les Picasses is from clay on limestone soils on a south-facing hillside where Bonnaventure holds two hectares, and the vines are roughly 40 years old. The must was fermented in 60-hectoliter oak vats for three weeks, and the wine was aged for two years in 400-liter barrels from Burgundy. Dressed in a dark cherry color, the 2015 offers a deep, coolish, fresh and concentrated cassis bouquet with earthy, flinty and some floral aromas as well as raw meat, iron and a dash of mocha. Smooth, round and very elegant on the palate, this is a spicy-peppery, vital and beautifully balanced Chinon with a long, fresh and crisp finish. Stimulating, salty and remarkably fine. This is a great Chinon, and its salty vibrancy is really kicking. You can keep this wine for at least 10 or 20 years. Bottled in December 2017. Tasted back in May 2018.
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Wine Spectator
A sleek and fresh style, with light sanguine, anise and olive hints dancing atop a core of red and black cherry fruit. The racy finish lets black tea and iron hints streak through. Not big, but has range and cut. This should cellar well. Drink now through 2025.
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine, now mature and ready to drink, is named after the hillside on which the vineyard is planted. Aged in wood, it is smooth, with fine tannins set against ripe cherry and blackberry fruits.
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