Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
Firmly structured and elegant, this is a demi-sec but supremely food-friendly and balanced, with subtle sweetness deftly offset by savory power and mineral notes. Plush and generous, with flavors of honeycomb, ripe apple and heather that are all tightly hemmed in with plum skin acidity and apple seed tannins. Green almond bitterness and hints of fleur de sel mark the complex finish.
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James Suckling
This Vouvray may be barely off-dry, but it has a decadent personality with an explosion of floral aromas. Creamy and succulent on the medium-bodied palate, this is a very sensuous wine. Moderate acidity in the chenin blanc context, but this has more than enough freshness to carry this extroverted style. From biodynamically grown grapes.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Vouvray Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec is perfectly balanced, wafting from the glass with a complex, delicate bouquet of mint, flowers, white fruits and ripe orchard fruits interwoven with lovely spicy notes. Medium- to full-bodied and gourmand without being too simple, it's enveloping with a fleshy core of fruit, a sweet mid-palate that concludes with a long, ethereal finish. Pure and delicate, this is a nicely crafted demi-sec.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
An important white wine appellation in the Touraine and one of the top in all of the Loire, Vouvray uniquely specializes in a wide range of styles from dry to sweet, and still to sparkling, each with its own definitive character. Vouvray is almost always 100% Chenin blanc (however up to 5% Menu Pineau is theoretically allowed but not often used).
Vouvray is also the name of a pretty little town just east of Tours on the northern bank of the Loire—its vineyards surround it to the northeast. Houses and cellars are carved out of the local tuffeau, a chalky or sandy, fine-grained limestone. Vineyards inhabit clay and gravel topsoil over tuffeau on the plateau, the best of which have a slight slope with a southerly aspect.
Chenin blanc’s high acidity and natural adaptability allow it to produce a wide range of styles with enormous success. Styles under the Vouvray name include sparkling, both Brut and Demi-Sec and still: Sec (dry) and Tendre (off-dry) as well as Demi-Sec (noticeably sweet), Moelleux (very sweet) and Liquoreaux (botrytized). Most can age about five years but the best quality versions will continue to improve over decades.