Winemaker Notes
Domaine de la Noblaie Chinon Les Chiens-Chiens is an elegant Chinon from sandy tuffeau soils offers dark fruit flavors and a silky texture.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chinon Les Chiens Chiens possesses a pure and clean bouquet of dark wild berries, violet, flowers and mulberries, followed by a juicy, elegant and fresh palate with a tense, calcareous mid-palate that segues into a long, mouthwatering finish framed by chalky dry extracts. This is a real success.
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Vinous
The 2022 Les Chiens-Chiens is a rich, tannic Cabernet Franc. While it's less than medium-bodied, this has drive, line, intensity and power. Expect pencil lead and ripe black fruit alongside dark chocolate-tinged bitterness and toasted notes.
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Wine Enthusiast
A Chinon for every day. Perfumed aromas of red raspberry, red cherry and rhubarb fill the nose along with dried orange peel. Mouthwatering cranberry refreshes and rejuvenates the palate.
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