Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The yellow-golden 2014 Clos de la Coulée de Serrant, a world famous and iconic Chenin with its own appellation (Savennières – Coulée de Serrant AC), opens with a beautifully clear, precise and aromatic bouquet of ripe and dried, lovely concentrated stone and grapefruit, as well as some honey aromas intermixed with crushed crystalline stones and herbal flavors. Highly elegant, clear and vital on the palate, this full-bodied wine is immensely intense but also silky, transparent and finesse-full. The long and stimulating finish is enormously piquant and salty, very compact but in perfect balance. There are dried Mediterranean herbs like thyme along with concentrated apricot and quince flavors in the persistent aftertaste. A great, elegant and very refined Coulée. 95+
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.
Known for its delightful whites and sparkling Pétillant and Mousseux, made predominantly of Chenin blanc, Anjou has a temperate and dry maritime climate. The region's limited temperature variations are admiringly referred to locally as the “douceur angevine,” or “Anjou sweetness.” Fruit forward rosé and red wines from Cabernet Franc and Gamay merit Anjou its success within the Loire subregions.