Off to the Salon in Angers this weekend. The trip has been complicated somewhat by learning that SNCF are striking on February 3rd, the day I return. It could be worse - I might have had no warning at all. Nevertheless, I’m currently trying to arrange alternative transport from Angers to Paris for next Wednesday. As if I didn’t have other things I could be doing!
Enough moaning, onto the wines. Here are notes on two recently imbibed wines, a Menetou-Salon which outgunned, pleasure-wise, a rosé Sancerre which followed:
Fournier Père et Fils Menetou-Salon Les Chanvrières 2004: This family of négociants own 56 hectares in the central appellations of Menetou-Salon, Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, but buy and sell wines from every corner of France. A pale golden hue in glass. Gorgeously smoky, flinty, gunpowdery aroma, very classic and certainly stylish and very typical of the central vineyards. Tasting blind I would have guessed Pouilly-Fumé for sure. Bright, fresh, with a combination of sharp but rich citrus fruit on the with an intense, minerally, gunpowdery element alongside on the palate. Savoury, crunchy, very terroir-orientated, this is very impressive indeed. Sappy and freshly acidic. Delicious, with well-balanced acidity and substance, and plenty of character. 16.5/20
Bernard Reverdy Sancerre Rosé 2008: From a 12-hectare estate established by Bernard Reverdy, this estate is now run by his son Noël with wife Claudine. Bottled under an agglomerate cork. A beautiful colour here, reminiscent of a peachy early morning sky. The nose has some good characteristics, crisp strawberry fruit with a very zippy, leafy element, touched with a little softening cream. It isn’t the most exuberant of wines, but then it does have lightness and freshness on its side. A nice weight on entry, with good strawberry and peach-skin flavour at first, before thinning out somewhat through the midpalate where the acidity comes through, the wine missing some concentration here. That acidity is certainly fresh, which is admirable, but towards the ends it seems as though that is all there is, the flavours blunted, the texture present but with little to support it. Suddenly on the finish it all comes back, nettly, green but certainly fresh. This wine certainly has its good points. For current drinking. 15/20