Two brilliant Saumur whites from Château de Villeneuve

Straight ahead the church of Souzay-Champigny and to the right Château de Villeneuve

1999 Les Cormiers, Saumur Blanc
1998 Saumur Blanc

It is easy to forget how well top quality Saumur Blanc will age and two lovely whites from Jean-Pierre Chevallier act as a reminder. Both were served as aperitifs but on separate occasions. Firstly the 1999 Les Cormiers, JP’s top white cuvée fermented and aged in 500 litre barrels – one half new and one half one wine. This has always been one of JP’s great vintages of Les Cormiers. It has lovely rich honeyed fruit, minerality and freshness in the finish – wonderfully complex. The 1999 shows no sign of tiring and served blind it would be difficult to say that it is nearly 10 years old and it is a fraction of the cost of top Burgundy, though comparable in quality.

The 1998 domaine is more mineral and austere but still wonderfully fresh. Fine but without the complexity of the 1999 Les Cormiers it remains an impressive effort from the least good vintage of the second half of the 1990s. I think the 1998 would have been entirely fermented and matured in stainless steel. From the early part of this decade Jean-Pierre has fermented and aged an increasing proportion of this cuvée firstly in 500-litre and now in 400-litre barrels. Like the 1999, the 1998 shows no sign of tiring, although I did wonder how this would have held up when I pulled it out of the rack.

"What about screwcaps?" Jean-Pierre Chevallier pulling the cork on his 2004 Saumur Blanc – August 2005

Bearing in mind the quality of Jean-Pierre’s wines – both white and red – along with a number of other producers in the area, it was sad to read a comment by Keith Prothero about Saumur on Jamie Goode’s Wine Anorak blog:

‘Must go back sometime. Went 4 years ago and stayed in a posh hotel near Saumur overlooking the Loire. All very nice except for the fact that it pissed down the three days we were there,and hence decided to abandon ship and drive to Brittany!! Not a big fan of the wine apart from mature Huet Vouvray.’

August 2005: Jean-Pierre with his 2004 Saumur Blanc

I imagine Keith must have been staying at Le Prieure Chenehutte-Les-Tuffeaux hotel to the west of Saumur. Heartbreaking to be so near to discovering wonderful wines and yet so far………..