Foire aux Vins de Vouvray and an exciting new discovery

Entrance to the foire in the Caves de la Bonne Dame, Vouvray

I dropped into Vouvray's foire aux vins for a couple of hours this morning. This events are often interesting: they allow you to taste a number of different producers quickly and, although, the big names are often absent you may discover an exciting new producer. This was certainly the case today – no sign of Champalou, Foreau, Fouquet, Gaudrelle or Huet. Instead the best known producers present were Vigneau-Chevreau and Bourillon-Dorléans and furthermore I did discover an exciting producer who was new to me: Laurent Bonneau of the Domaine de la Croix des Vainqueurs in Chançay.

Laurent Bonneau

Laurent Bonneau is somewhat of a rarity in Vouvray – both a newcomer, who has started from nothing, and someone who had a a previous career before choosing to make wine. Laurent comes from Loches and worked previously in l'environment. After work experience at Château la Garde in Pessac-Leognan, he started in Vouvray two and a half years ago and has eight hectares. I tasted three of his wines (Le Bouchet) from 2008 – sec, demi-sec and moelleux. I was impressed by their purity and minerality. The demi-sec is vinified in barriques of two and three wines. These are bought from Château Pape-Clément. The 2008 demi-sec has a touch of spice, some concentration and attractive apricot and peach flavours. His apple, quince and honeyed 2008 Moelleux has 50 grams of residual sugar. It was picked between 18th-20th October and has a good balance between the sweetness and acidity with an emphasis on the fruit. "Last year the harvest was very late," Laurent explained. "We started picking for our sparkling wines on the 6th October. depending upon the year I make 50% sparkling and 50% still. "

Laurent Bonneau

Laurent's first vintage was 2006 – not an easy start. However, he told me about a liquoreux that he made that year. "After the 2007 vintage I visited Jacques Beaujeau (Château la Varière, Brissac-Quincé) and saw how he makes his Bonnezeaux and Quarts de Chaume. As I still had a grapes left on some of my vines I decided to have go at a making a liquoreux, so I got some of the pickers to come back and we picked on 11th November. The resulting wine has 180 grams of residual sugar and 9 gms of acidity." Laurent's sweet wine was clearly a success as it has impressed Noël Pinguet, who is not given to excessive compliments. "Noël came to visit recently and told me that my liquoreux was the best 2007 sweet wine in Vouvray. He did go on to say that Huet had made the best sweet Vouvray in 2006 and I agree with him."

It is good to see an exciting newcomer in Vouvray as Montlouis has recently been making much of the running recently.

Laurent Bonneau, Domaine de la Croix des Vainqueurs
20 bis Rue d'Amboise, 37210 Chançay.
Tel: 02.47.52.25.16. Email: l.bonneau@hotmail.fr

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Other wines that impressed at the Foire:
Initially I chose to taste just the secs from the 20 producers showing their wines at this foire. I find tasting the dry wines a useful approach to select interesting producers – with little residual sugar to gloss over the defects. Like other foire aux vins there is a considerable range of quality and there were some very poor wines on show here – green, dilute and not fully clean. Some of the producers here sell most of their production on vrac (en citerne) to négociants, who I suspect are often more interested in price and quantity than quality. Regrettable but quite understandable if their business is supplying supermarkets with premier prix Vouvray.

Following on from the tasting back in late May at Thorman Hunt in London I was again impressed by the Vigneau-Chevreau wines. Christophe and Stéphane now run the estate, which has been biodynamic since 1999, taking over from Jean-Michel, their late father. I particularly liked their 2008 Sec, the 2007 Clos de Vaux demi-sec and the 2003 Château Gaillard Moelleux.

The Bourillon D'Orléans wines were well made – of the three secs (2008, 2007 and 2005) I tasted I preferred the 2005.

It was intresting tasting the wines of Daniel Jarry, which used to be imported into the UK by Yapp Brothers. I tasted their secs from 1998, 2000 and 1990 – all quite intriguing, especially the 2000, but very definitely old style.

Perhaps worth another look: Jean-Claude and Didier Aubert, Domaine Freslier, and Jean-Michel Gautier.

The tasting usefully confirmed that the top producers, who weren't present, overall deserve their positions at the top of the Vouvray tree.

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Prospects for 2009?
Several producers expressed cautious optimism for the forthcoming vintage. Vouvray has so far escaped the hail that has hit some other parts of Touraine and the Central Vineyards, in particular Menetou-Salon. August is currently very hot – up to around 35˚ yesterday and today. The hot weather is forecast to continue. The current feeling is: 'une belle vendange en prospect' with the harvest starting at the end of September beginning of October. However as ever, what happens from now to the vintage will be crucial.