2016 Saumur Chenin du Puy
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From 49-year-old vines on clayey-limestone soils in Saumur du Puy-Notre-Dame, Frédéric Mabileau’s 2016 Saumur Chenin du Puy comes in a heavy bottle and with 13% alcohol. The wine definitely needs a big glass and lots of time to release its characteristic chalky, ripe and elegant fruit notes with dashes of lemon juice that are at first covered by intense sur lie and oaky notes. Full-bodied, rich and very elegant on the thoroughly fresh and mineral palate, this is a highly complex and textural Chenin with fine tannins and a long, intense and impressive finish. The acidity is remarkably fine and perfectly interwoven with the chalkiness of this big but also refined and elegant wine whose evolvement in the bottle should be interesting to follow. White peach aromas populate the aftertaste, which adds a super sexiness to this long and salty Chenin that is one of the finest I have tasted from Saumur. Tasted in June 2021.
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Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
A sumptuous yet tangy barrel-fermented 2016 Chenin du Puy that is starting to shed its primary fruit and head into a more savory, secondary phase. Hailing from 50-year-old vines on the gravel-clay soils of Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame, a relatively recent addition to the Loire's appellation roll call, it is rich and concentrated and distinctly salty. You can expect nectarine skin, a whiff of toasty smoke and secondary, lanolin characters developing. There's masses of citrusy acidity on the lengthy finish. A modern style with plenty of winemaking input, but the fruit shines through. Ready to drink.
46-year-old vines on clay and limestone soil. Manual harvest. Spontaneous fermentation. 16 months’ ageing. Frédéric Mabileau (who died in a tragic microlight accident in September 2020) has always mainly made wine in St-Nicolas de Bourgueil but he’d long wanted to make Chenin. Around 2007 he found a parcel of about 1 ha in Saumur. Fermented in wood, in 500-litre barrels and 12-hl vats. Not old barrels – a mix of new, one- and two-year-old barrels. NHB. Beautiful nose. Stunning, smoked-nectarine nose – this is PURE rocks. A dragon of a wine, hewn into a cliff, tastes like a mountain, tastes like a storm. Austere, precise and yet rugged. Wow, is this even ready to drink?? Jim Budd says that the 2007 vintage of this had filled out beautifully when he tasted it this year, so you're probably looking at this wine becoming more and more interesting over the next 10 to 15 years. Needs decanting and do NOT drink cold! Stony, so, so stony. Salt-pickled lemons. NB tasted a month later, after it had been sitting in our cellar tightly corked up, the overriding impression was its power. Don't underestimate this wine. If I were dispensing advice, I'd say buy a case of 12 and drink one bottle a year. (TC)