Winemaker Notes
This wine is like liquid silk on the palate, with a nose that entices with aromas of lime, mandarin, and pink grapefruit, complemented by intensely fragrant white flowers. The palate offers a subtle, creamy texture with a fine residual sweetness and a refreshingly mineral finish, harmonizing beautifully with aperitifs, spicy Asian dishes, and cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From a solar, hot vintage, the 2020 Montlouis-sur-Loire Clos Habert offers up aromas of white fruits, spices, ripe orchard fruits and flowers. Medium- to full-bodied, enveloping and delicately sweet, it's fleshy with good depth at the core and a long, saline and ethereal finish. Vinified and matured in large barrels.
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Vinous
The 2020 Montlouis Clos Habert is an off-dry Chenin Blanc with the ripeness and richness of the vintage showing through. Pear and nectarine fruit edge into almost exotic notes and leesderived pastry characters. While it still has mouthwatering acidity, it is perhaps not as refined as it could be.
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.
On the south bank of the Loire River, below Vouvray, Montlouis produces all styles of Chenin blanc from bone dry, off-dry, sweet, oak aged and even the sparkling Montlouis Mousseux and Montlouis Pétillant Naturel. Soils here are lighter and sandier compared to Vouvray.