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Domaine de Juchepie Update, January 2011

My recent taste of the 2007 Juchepie Anjou Les Monts has spurred me on to publish my notes on a selection of cuvées tasted with Eddy Oosterlinck at the Salon des Vins de Loire earlier this year. I would normally catch Eddy at the frolicking orgy of natural-biodynamic wines that is the annual Renaissance tasting, organised by Nicolas Joly and Marc Angeli (the Morecambe and Wise of biodynamics, perhaps?) and which is always held the weekend before the Salon, but the ridiculous decision by the Salon organisers to move the start of their three-day wine fair to the Sunday scuppered this plan. Spotting Eddy and his wife Mileine at his Renaissance stand I agreed to meet up with him a day or two later at the Salon to taste his wines, while I concentrated on those domaines that wouldn't be at the later event.

This decision to place the Salon des Vins de Loire in direct competition with the Renaissance event, rather than to work alongside it, does the Loire no favours in my opinion. It makes life difficult for the vignerons; for example, exhibitors are not permitted to leave their stands at the Salon unmanned, so simply skipping the Sunday in favour of your stand at the Renaissance is not an option. You choose one or the other, it seems, or - as Eddy and Mileine did - recruit some friends to man the Salon stand on the first day, attending on the second day when the Renaissance event is over. And it makes life difficult for the journalists, sommeliers and wine-trade types visiting the region, some having travelled thousands of miles to get to the Loire, who then must choose one event over the other. It isn't exactly the best way to market Loire Valley wine. In fact it is idiotic.

I know Eddy won't mind me opening with this little aside, because - although I am most certainly not speaking for Eddy here - I am quite sure he has similar sentiments. All the same, lets get back to the wines. I tasted through these with Eddy, while Mileine attempted to ply me with little hors d'oeuvres, all of which I refused having just eaten lunch. I was disappointed to have eaten so well, as the foie gras looked particularly good. Richard Leroy stopped by, shook hands, and clearly thought the same about what was on offer here. Oh alright then, just one wafer-thin slice....

From Les Secs to Quintessence

We began with three dry wines, starting with two barrel samples from the 2009 vintage, Les Monts and Le Clos, which both showed a slightly raw, wood-influenced character. I think these will show much better when in bottle. Certainly a taste of the 2008 Le Clos did nothing to dispel this conclusion as this latter vintage, which has had plenty of time to integrate in bottle, showed a much more honeyed, polished character. Once again 2008 proves itself as a valuable vintage, not to be ignored in favour of the more exuberant wines from 2009.

Although I have increasingly enjoyed the dry wines from Eddy Oosterlinck, it cannot be denied that the real draw here is the array of sweet cuvées that he fashions. The wines, show a really firm backbone, the sweetness complemented sometimes by a lightly oxidative streak, and more often by a degree of bitterness which Eddy actively looks for. I think much of this attractive bitterness originates from the very slow and gentle pressing he undertakes, extracting the juice over prolonged period of time, sometimes as long as 24 hours. This effectively gives the wine 24 hours of skin contact of course, and I suspect this may be largely responsible for the grippy bitterness that both Eddy and I enjoy finding in his wines. First up was 2006 Les Churelles, a vintage which Eddy says is characterised by rain after the development of extensive botrytisation, thus the wines tend to show a rich-vintage character but with lower residual sugars than you might expect; in this case it is less than 60 g/l. By contrast, the 2003 Les Quarts reflected the qualities of that vintage, which was one marked heavily by a passerillé character as there was not enough humidity for the botrytis to take hold.

A step up from here is La Passion, in this case from the 2007 vintage, a wine which boasts more than 150 g/l residual sugar, a figure which puts most of the 2010 Sauternes I so recently wrote up to shame. At this level the wines of Domaine de Juchepie really start to show some amazing complexity, full of aromatic spice-nuances including notes of star anise and cardamom, and this cuvée is no exception. Finally we finished up with a real treat, not one but two examples of Quintessence, from the 2007 and 2005 vintages. Both were very fine, although the more recent vintage is the better I think, the conditions during 2007 fostering more botrytis and complexity in the wine, whereas 2005 was hot, dehydrating the grapes, engendering them with very high residual sugars (over 200 g/l in this case) and dried-fruit flavours, but without the nuances that can be found in 2007. Having said that, I would gladly add either to my cellar. (12/5/11)

Domaine de Juchepie Update, January 2011 - Tasting Notes

The wines below were tasted with Eddy Oosterlinck in January 2011. All my tasting notes on Domaine de Juchepie's wines, including those below, are collated under my Domaine de Juchepie profile. Click to locate stockists.