Anjou Blanc "Roueres"

France
Loire
2019

Pure Chenin Blanc from one of the three original decreed parcels of the Quarts de Chaume, Rouères. This parcel is southeast-facing and just a few meters north of the Layon river. This parcel produces powerful, dense, and firmly structured dry Quarts de Chaume. Aged for 18 months in barrel before bottling.

96 points
""Les Rouères' is one of the three plots listed in the original decree creating the Quarts-de-Chaume appellation, on the eastern side," reports Ivan Massonat. "The soils, thin and hot, rest on pudding sandstone—sand concretions and rolled gravel—accumulating the heat of the day and restoring it at night. This solar terroir gives birth to charming, ample and complex wines," finds Massonnat. His golden-colored 2019 Anjou Sec Rouères, from a 2.96-hectare plot, opens with a deep, intense and rich yet immediately also crystalline, fresh and concentrated bouquet of ripe and warm fruits intertwined with refreshing and piquant grapefruit and smoked speck aromas (think warm baked dates wrapped in bacon). The Rouères seems cooler, more crystalline and purer than the expansive, rich and narcotic 2019 Veau. Accordingly, the introduction on the palate is crystalline and full of vibrant minerality, purity and fine tannins, whereas the fruit is more lean and bitter, intertwined with tannins, heroic acidity and salts. The finish is still tight and reminiscent of candied lemons and a tequila-like salt and lemon mix. The 2019 Rouères is much less Dionysian at this early stage but Appollinese. The nose is almost a bit dusty, pure and stony as it is, and the oh-so-salty and piquant palate is built on finesse and mineral freshness rather than richness and power. This is definitely a wine to cellar for 10 or 20 years, and certainly longer. The still-tight and austere but tensile 2019 Rouères should gain complexity and texture with bottle age and eventually might also develop some hedonistic features, but for now it pleases most of all the Riesling aficionados among us. Natural cork. Tasted in September 2021."
Stephan Reinhardt,
Wine Advocate
October 2021
93 points
"A richly textured, big-boned version, with a lot of stuffing. With bottle age, this has beautifully integrated juicy lemon, white peach, apple and spices with a wall of salt and minerality, all under a veil of smoke. Showing toasted acacia and spice details, this has the concentration and structure to go the distance in the cellar. Stunning."
Kristen Bieler ,
Wine Spectator
November 2023

SKU/Code: 
DB3759-19
Product Line: 
Wine
White
Varietal: 
Chenin Blanc
Farming Type: 
Biodynamic