Bright, yellow-fruited, Nose. Moderately rich, and pretty straightforward on the palate. Dry. Alc. not noticeable.
Sometimes Chidaine is excellent, and sometimes they’re just “solid/very good.” This bottle was the latter. Got this on sale for $29, but it’s not interesting enough to rebuy even at that fair price. Will buy again in future vintages, however.
That’s the case for so many producers! Do you think Chidaine is more variable than others?
I’ve posted several times about how 2022 and 2023 Chidaine wines did not please me young, and I gave up, although will be happy to hear others tell me that their bottles become lovely with more age. I will be opening some 2024 soon, looking forward to it.
I do think there is at least a fair amount of bottle variation with Chidaine; I’ve had at least one that was poxed. I also do think they develop some with time. When they are on, though, I find them to be incredible; i can’t believe what i’m drinking at that price point–@$25-30 when i was buying.
Yes, I do think they’re more variable than “normal.” Sometimes I love them, other times they’re just ho-hum. It’s not often I have that experience to that extent with a producer. And it’s not a bottle-by-bottle situation, either; rather, it’s just a matter of some vintages they hit it out of the park, and others they don’t.
Presumably this also means it’s not a cuvee-by-cuvee situation either. Interesting. I don’t follow closely enough to know if this is an issue of some vintages being better suited to their style? Or their style involving a fair amount of experimentation from year to year?
Exactly the same now for well over 20 years for me. Given the availability in my neck of the woods, I will continue to buy the occasional bottle. But… some wines in some vintages are just positively electric. And in other vintages… felt like they were even more bored making the wine than I was drinking it. My interest was first stoked by some really exciting bottles of the Choisilles in the early 2000s. Looking back over the 20-year-span, in my world Chidaine hasn’t really lived up to that initial excitement at all.
Even though I haven’t had any since the 2010(?) vintage and never really followed them closely across vintages, I think you’re on the money here. I haven’t noticed much if any bottle variation within vintages but across them and, naturally, the cuvées themselves. Like most producers, but maybe to even greater degree, it’s the crisp years that do best and the warmer years that lack the verve that dulls them a little. While we didn’t get into it in detail, I do remember discussing it with Calder, who has represented them many years, that in some years they can really nail it pretty much across all cuvées.
This is how I remember them and was shocked after not paying attention to their pricing for several years to see it’s now closer to $50. Always enjoy them but I am not a buyer at that point.
Agreed. I loved those wines. And it was a formative time for me.
But in retrospect, those vintages of Choisilles would probably taste ‘rustic’ if I had them today, and they might impress less. Time always marches forward.
After being a great fan of Chidaine when I started discovering Chenins, I went off the wines completely after the 2005 vintage, of which I bought a lot across the board: they were overripe and aged very badly. I did try a few in later years, but the ABVs were too high for me and I just didn’t like their flabby style at all.
But this year I visited their shop - I went with the intention of buying some of their daughter’s wines, Clos de la Frelonnerie, which I had tried one bottle of (2021) and really liked. It’s very hard to find and I thought, rightly so, that they would have some. Whilst there, I tried the Chidaine 2023s, out of curiosity, expecting not to like them, and was surprised to be impressed by their freshness, so I bought a few. We’ll see how they turn out!