"The Chinon “les Granges” from Matthieu Baudry is the family’s “early drinker”, made from vines a quarter century of age grown on alluvial and gravel soils close to the Vienne River. The 2022 les Granges comes in at a svelte 12.5 percent octane and offers up a beautifully classical nose of dark berries, black cherries, tree bark, a dollop of juniper berry, a lovely base of gravelly soil tones, espresso and cigar ash. On the palate the wine is bright, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a good core of black fruit, fine soil undertow, moderate tannins and lovely length and grip on the still quite youthful finish. Even though this is the Baudry family’s most precocious bottling, I would not be inclined to open a bottle until it has had at least four or five years in the cellar, just to let those backend tannins soften up a bit more and the wine’s secondary layers of complexity start to emerge. Lovely juice. 2028-2060. "