Montlouis sur Loire Remus - 2021
Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups
- Region
- France 禄 Loire 禄 Montlouis AOC
- Type
- white still, dry
- Producer
- Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups
- Vintage
- 2021
- Grapes
- Chenin Blanc
- Alcohol
- 12.5
- Sugar
- 1.5
- Volume
- 750 mL
- Cellar
- not available
- Find at
Ratings
What a tremendous difference in just over a year! A well-tuned and elegant bouquet of tilia honey, quince, white flowers, and gunpowder. Wonderful balance鈥攖here's intensity, freshness, and so many flavours. It's delicious, voluminous, and long. I couldn't help myself and finished a glass in an instant.
Wonderful Chenin Blanc. Fruit-forward bouquet of quince, white flowers (like acacia and tilia blossoms) and sea pebbles. Sophisticated yet too young both in the nose and mouthfeel. Less convincing and nuanced than, say, Les Hauts de Husseau. Yet charming, balanced and mineral.
Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups
Domaine de La Taille Aux Loups has an interesting history. Although it's now associated with esteemed winemaker Jacky Blot, he wasn't the one who established the domaine. The viticultural maverick who brought La Taille aux Loups into being was Christian Prudhomme, a man from Bordeaux.
Prudhomme wanted to shake things up in Montlouis-sur-Loire. With experience working in the vineyards and cellars of Ch芒teau Mouton-Rothschild, as well as at Opus One in California, he acquired 7 hectares of old vines in 1988 and set about making wine his way. This included reducing yields by thinning crops, harvesting into small crates to protect the fruit, and fermenting with indigenous yeasts in barrels purchased from Ch芒teau d'Yquem. The resulting wines were reportedly a testament to his wild dedication.
However, the business collapsed within a year of starting up, for reasons that remain unclear. This was where Jacky Blot entered the story, marking the start of Montlouis' dynamic development, thanks in no small part to his ambitious and active efforts (alongside Fran莽ois Chidaine, another esteemed winemaker from Montlouis).
After working as a courtier for some time, Jacky Blot decided to look for vineyards of his own. The small domaine that Prudhomme had gathered together was available, and Jacky took up where his predecessor had left off, with just those 7 hectares of vines. It was around this time that he met Christophe Mesliand, the son of a viticultural family from Amboise. Jacky hired Christophe as his chef de culture, and the two have worked together at La Taille aux Loups ever since.
Domaine de La Taille Aux Loups is located just 11km from Vouvray, so the house's speciality is Chenin Blanc. However, Blot drew great inspiration from Burgundy, and many of the wines follow a single-vineyard, terroir-driven approach, with a focus on organic viticulture. These whites are known for their precision, length, complexity, and age-ability.
Sadly, Jacky Blot passed away on May 15, 2023. His legacy will live on through the wines produced by his son Jean-Philippe and the teams at Domaine de la Taille aux Loups and Domaine de la Butte (another winery he owned).