Winemaker Notes
Bastingage is a cuvée of 25-year-old vine Chenin Blanc grown in soils of shale and sandstone. This cuvée is harvested by hand with a strict selection in the vineyard during several passes to ensure only ripe and healthy fruit is sent to the cellar where it sees a traditional fermentation and aging in barrel with indigenous yeasts followed by a few months in vat before bottling.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Vin de France Bastingage is a pure Chenin Blanc from 25-year-old vines cultivated on the sandstone and weathered shale soils in St Aubin de Luigné, Layon. The grapes were picked in several highly selective passages and placed in 20-kilogram bins, then pressed slowly as whole clusters, whereas the must was vinified with indigenous yeasts in barrels for one year prior to the final blend being aged for another couple of months in tank, from where this wine was drawn in spring this year. Its lemon-yellow color is bright and fresh, and the nose is intense, refined and elegant, with citrus-fruit aromas and flinty notes of crushed stones. Full-bodied, intense and creamy on the palate, this is an ample, vital, very mineral-driven and crystalline Chenin with plenty of tension, intensity and fine mineral-salty length. An exceptional, long-lasting and dense wine with firm but fine tannins and great aging potential. Impressive!
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.