Jim's Loire: Bourgueil: rain halts VTT but 1964 compensates!

Representation of the Bourgueil vineyard showing the

Loire and the vines as they climb up the hill planted

initally on sand and gravel, then gravel and clay

limestone on the steepest slopes

The Lamé Delisle Boucard family tree

It seemed an excellent idea to go to Bourgueil do some VTT and have a picnic at Mont Sigou at the time when Météo France were predicting that the whole of last week would be wall-to-wall sunshine. Unfortunately Météo France changed their mind and by the time we set off from Epeigné-les-Bois early last Wednesday morning the first spots of rain started falling as we drove out of Epeigné-les-Bois. By the time we reached Lamé Delisle Boucard in Ingrandes-de-Touraine (AC Bourgueil) the rain was steady and the temperature a good 10˚ lower that it had been the day before.

It only took part of a nano-second to decide that give the conditions a tasting at Lamé was much more attractive than getting soaking wet riding our bikes. First we tasted the 2014 Bourgueil Rosé and the 2014 Domaine from les graviers – both delicious with the fruit very much to the fore – with Patricia Boucard before her husband Philippe arrived and took over. Philippe expertly ran through several aspects of the Bourgueil vineyards in particular the geology. Then we tasted a number of single vineyard 2014s from wood before repairing to their amazing cellar. This is where Les 5 du Vin enjoyed in June 2012 our amazing tasting of Bourgueil wines back to 1893.

Highlights in the cellar: 1893

... 1947

Collection of wine deities: Bacchus

Flufluns

We started off their 2011 Vieiles Vignes, which is promising with attractive soft fruit and some structure but which will improve further with more time in bottle. Then Philippe kindly pulled out a older bottle. Its colour was a little more developed than the 2011 but not by a lot. Its fruit was still very fresh. I was tending to think that it was from somewhere in the 1980s – 1985? I didn't think it was 1976, which is quite often pulled out in these parts because it had the characteristics of a good but not very hot year such as 1976. I was surprised when Philippe said this was a 1964. It was very generous of him as 1964 is a very good vintage here and in Chinon. We kept the 1964 to enjoy with our picnic that we had in the offices of Lamé Delisle Boucard as we decided that it was too cold to have it in Lamé's new installed wooden vat atop of Mont Sigou, which was really the whole point of our trip to Bourgueil. It opened up impressively in glass helped also by being a little warmer – lovely complex brambly fruit, softly textured and with a long finish. Yet another demonstration of how well Bourgueil can keep.

Later we headed up to Mont Sigou to inspect the new picnic vat: