Winemaker Notes
An ample wine with the return of the grape pulp and freshness of lively fruit. The aromas of licorice develop through aging. A wine to share with friends around a good barbecue. A generous explosion of wild strawberries and blackberries.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine is rich, with ripe black fruits and tannins. The balance is already there in a generous wine that has tannins cushioned by fruit.
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James Suckling
A crisp, vivid and succulent Chinon showing notes of red berries, bell peppers and some blueberry jam. Medium-bodied with fine tannins and zesty acidity. Juicy and succulent, with forest berry character and a flavorful finish. From biodynamically grown grapes with Demeter certification.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2020 Chinon Gabare is showing well today, evoking aromas of cherries, blueberries, ink, iris and mint. Medium to full-bodied, sappy and juicy, it’s enveloping and round with a velvety attack, sweet tannins and an enrobing core of fruit that finishes long and ethereal. It was matured for 10 months in concrete tanks.
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Vinous
The 2020 Gabare is like sinking into a comfy chair or a warm bath; this envelops you with its silken generosity. This is ripe and sweetly fruited with ripe blackcurrant and blackberry fruit, bay leaf and the merest earth note starting to peek through. Refreshing acidity flows through the palate, leaving it watering with a fineness to the supple tannins. This is still very young with primary fruit and lovely length.
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