I don't get Loire Cabernet Franc. They are all thin and watery.

I kid! I kid!

Here is the purpose of my post.

Please tell people who have a New World palate where to start with Loire reds.

  1. What wines would we enjoy from a New World point of view (but not an oaky overripe point of view)?

  2. What wines will teach us something about typicite in Loire reds without us feeling like we’re drinking something thin, watery, tannic, green, and metallic?

Please no flaming. I am certain there are Loire reds I would love. Guide me to them. But be gentle you big European brute you.

George -

It is destiny, your 1000th post is about Loire Cab Franc! By 2000, you will be drinking Lenoir, Raffault and Guion, begging for more green pepper, barnyard and ash! Who needs fruit in their wine anyway?

I kid, I kid. I’ve introduced many friends with new world palates to Chinon, and think Joguet is one of the best entry points. It’s an historic estate, carries a handful of cuvees, a few of which tend to show more modern than traditional Chinon estates (at least in some riper, recent vintages). I defy anyone to put a 2005 or 2009 Joguet Clos de la Dioterie in a line-up, blind, and have anyone say this is thin and watery. It’s a beast of a Chinon. The Petites Roche Joguet shows well, too, and around $20-$25, it’s a great value.

[stirthepothal.gif] It’s perfectly fine as a weekday wine to drink with an egg omelet or maybe some grilled salmon. Pierre Breton makes very nice Cab Francs that are well made, tasty and a good bottle to open under the right circumstances. Would I open it with grilled Flannery steaks or smoked brisket with caramelized onions and mole sauce? No. But I wouldn’t open a bottle of Scarecrow with a dinner of seared scallops on creamy polenta with a side of pureed cauliflower.

PS - I have a mag of 2007 Olga Raffault Chinon Les Picases. Some people drink blind. I have been known to buy blind. Anyone want to express an opinion on when this will be ready to drink?

I had the '07 last month, was drinking fine. Not a great Raffault vintage, IMHO. Can’t hurt to hold for a few more years but not really sure how much better it will get. For $hit$ and giggles last night, I popped an '09 Raffault. Following a bone dry 2013 Donnhoff (trocken), switching to a different red may have been culture shock. The '09 is nowhere near drinkable, but I sorta liked the high acid. Interested to see how it shows tonight.

Baudry would be a good place to start. The Domaine and Clos Guillot bottlings are relatively friendly, with nice pure fruit as well as typicity.

My first post, to go along with your 1000th post!

Oh, and I second the Breton recommendation. Some other approachable favorites are Domaine Filliatreau and Domaine de la Butte.

Great post. Was gonna ask the same question. I bought some '09 Butte and its bretty as hell. Also seems to improve by being shaken a bit before serving, I guess on account of trapped CO2. Also, been drinking '11 Joguet Cuvee de La Cure and was wondering from a qualitative aspect where this particular cru lies on the range of other Joguets.

These aren’t wines that anyone with a New World palate should expect to like without at least 3 or 4 gateway drugs conquered first.

I am not sure that someone with a new world palate will like any Loire reds. It is not that they are thin and watery, it is that they have acidity. You are likely used to wines with low acidity (there are wines from California with good acidity like Stony Hill Cabernet, but these are not the norm). The acidity give the wines a refreshing flavor and helps them age, but likely is offputting to you.

That said, if you want a richer Loire wine, the first thing to look for is a richer vintage, like 2009 and 2010. These will have more the fruit you are used to but still with the acidity of a good Cabernet Franc. A producer that I think has richer wines is Amirault.

But, even better, to really understand what people are finding in Loire reds, don’t drink a real young one. Find one with some age on it. Chambers Street in NYC often has older Loire wines. One producer from whom one can often find older wines at decent prices is Olga Raffault.

Honestly, if you ever get to the point that you like these or other higher acid red wines, you likely will not ever be able to look at low acid reds again. They will start to seem cloying and lifeless.

YUP

Pretty fine stuff here.
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George,

I’m just getting into this region myself so certainly no expert, but I’ve had two great experiences in the last year: a 1993 Catherine and Pierre Breton Bourgueil Les Perrieres (at Green Man and French Horn in London), and a 2009 Chateau de Fosse-Seche Saumur Eolithe. The latter was I think under 20 bucks.

My understanding is that the 2012 vintage was quite challenging so I am still looking for 2010 and 2011 bottlings.

Cheers,
Doug

To the OP - the wines are going to be different if you haven’t had them. It’s not even about acidity and there’s no reason you can’t like them - I like plenty of Loire reds and I also like Australian Shiraz and Grenache from many regions. You don’t have to line up on one side or another of some imaginary divide - obviously Jay hasn’t and there’s no reason to.

The things that make Loire wines different from say, a warm-weather Sonoma wine is that the Loire reds can often have a kind of green note. That green note, which you can also get in some wines from cool places like Monterey or on the east coast, Long Island, is probably more obnoxious to people who don’t like it than the acidity, which can actually be similar to many wines from CA and elsewhere. The other thing about the Loire reds is that if you’re coming from bigger, heavier reds, the “infrastructure” of the wine tends not to be dressed out by a lot of fruit flavors and weight if that makes any sense.

Usually when you taste wine, you pick up things like the balance between sweet and sour. That comes from various sources, most obviously the amount of sugar in the wine vs the pH of it. But it’s actually more complicated - we find different acids to be more or less harsh and we sometimes perceive sweetness from glycerol, which also contributes to a smooth mouthfeel. A lot of what we perceive is what our brain thinks it’s going to get - it fills in the pattern it’s expecting. Food scientists make use of that when designing new snack foods, and people like Reidel have made fortunes out of it from wine drinkers.

But it’s not like there’s high-acid and low-acid wine and that’s the end of it, although many people simply decide to believe that. The red wines from the Loire, as well as those from other cool regions in Austria, Hungary, north Italy, Switzerland, etc, may not necessarily be more acidic than wines from elsewhere in terms of pH, but they will feel completely different because they tend not to have the same heft, and we will taste them as different as well.

Now given the Loire, there are several regions and they’re slightly different, although if you’re not famliar with the area, it’s likely you won’t pick up a lot of distinction. But to give it a shot - Saumur is huge, so it’s difficult to make any real generalization, but if I were you I’d start there. It has the largest number of producers, in some places is warm enough to produce Merlot and Cab Sauvignon as well as Cab Franc, and it’s the home of what I think is one of the best co-ops in the world, the Cave des Vignerons de Saumur, which was re-named last year to “Robert et Marcel”!!! (The original founders of the co-op back in the '50s) Anyhow, to me they are on par with the Produttori de Barbaresco in that they produce wines of outstanding quality, almost a definition of the area, and the wines are a fraction of the cost that you’d expect for the quality they deliver. You can pick up their wines for under $10 a bottle and they even age a bit. Keep a few for five, six, seven years and see what happens to them.

Also, what might be the best wine produced in the Loire comes from Saumur, or rather a sub-region of it called Saumur-Champigny, which is considered one of, if not the best region. That’s where Clos Rougeard is from. It’s not cheap, but it’s one of the world’s great Cab Francs.

Moving farther west, you come to Touraine and they might have the most diverse set of grapes - I’m not actually sure of that but in addition to Cab Franc, they grow Gamay, Cot, Pineau d’Aunis, and Pinot Noir and you find them in blends or monovarietal versions. That’s also where Chinon is - it’s a part of the larger political region of Touraine.

Because of the diversity, it’s hard to generalize, but the wines from Touraine, and from Chinon, tend to be a little lighter than those from Saumur.

Bourgueil is also part of Touraine and for me, it’s one of the toughest places - their wines tend to be more tannic, astringent and bitter and that’s the last place I’d look if I were you. Doesn’t mean the wines are bad, just that I don’t think it would be the best intro. Supposedly if you move up the hills from the river, you find great differences, but that’s a distinction that’s so far lost on me.

To be honest however, I’m not completely sure I could distinguish Chinon from Bourgueil blind - I’ve had fewer wines from Bourgueil than from Chinon so that perception may just be based on limited data. I’ve never tried the blind distinction either, so that will have to wait for another time.

As for Jay’s unfortunate bottle - it’s not a great wine in the first place IMHO, so I’d open it at a party when people won’t be paying a lot of attention.

Three things to keep in mind.

  1. The Loire makes really good sparkling wine that, like some cava in Spain, is a real bargain if you like sparkling wine.

  2. The Loire produces really good white wines and can actually make good Sauvignon Blanc, for which they deserve credit since I usually can’t abide that grape. But they make wonderful wine from Chenin Blanc and in the far west, Melon de Bourgogne.

  3. The Loire produces outstanding sweet wines from botrytized grapes. In fact, after Tokaj and Neusiedlersee, it may be the best source of them.

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Keith, can you recommend some good gateway drugs? Alfert keeps gushing about the Loire reds and even though I have old world palate, and love acidity, I still don’t get it. Maybe need to cross that barrier first. In jest of course…

+1 on the Clau de Nell cab franc and cuvée Violette. Violette is like a Loire/ Bdx hybrid. After that try some of the upper level Baudry wines

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Beaujolais could do it. Maybe also something like Ribeira Sacra or other mencia from Spain.

The Loire produces outstanding sweet wines from botrytized grapes. In fact, after Tokaj and Neusiedlersee, it may be the best source of them.

I know some fans of German Riesling and Sauternes that would be to differ with this statement.

I read the title and was ready to fight someone

Baudry clos guillot is a good start…2010 was beautiful…a clean profile that will not scare the new world guys

I agree with the acidity description on Loire cab franc wines in differentiating from most California ones. Also have to add the herb notes that one encounters with Loire’s.

I’ll second or third or fourth Baudry’s Clos Guillot for a more smoother transition into a good Loire product.