Winemaker Notes
The Le Mont Demi-Sec shares the inherent elegance of the vintage that is so beautifully exemplified in the Le Haut-Lieu Demi, offering up a pure and refined bouquet of pineapple, sweet quince, a touch of orange peel, lanolin, limestone minerality and a topnote of dried flowers. On the palate the wine is deep, fullbodied, focused and nicely vibrant with a good harness of acidity, with an excellent core, great transparency and nascent complexity and a very long, vibrant and classy finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Pure, fresh and limey on the deep yet bright and precisely flinty-chalky nose, the 2020 Vouvray Le Mont Demi-Sec is a Chenin full of crunchy energy and charm, thanks to its concentrated but round and lush fruit. This full-bodied wine is intense, tight and long but also finessed and vibrantly fresh on the finish, which reveals this crunchy flint stone structure and tension that guarantees an ability to age for decades, though the wine is already dangerously stimulating today. Tasted as a tank sample a few days before bottling in April 2021. Range: (95-96)
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Wine Spectator
This refined white shows lovely purity, with persimmon, coriander, yellow apple and creamed peach notes, backed by vivid acidity. Elements of flint, marzipan and honeysuckle unwind on the long, alluring finish. A striking Chenin Blanc. Drink now through 2036.
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.
Stretching east along the steep banks of the Loire River, Touraine is a major part of the Middle Loire. Soil variations of clay, sand, tuffeau and gravel throughout its subregions support both white and red varieties. Chinon and Bourgueil remain the source of Loire’s finest Cabernet Franc; various styles of the most outstanding Chenin blanc come from Vouvray and Montlouis.