Domaine des Baumard: The Wines of Savennières
As for the practices in the cellar at Domaine des Baumard, here again they are distinctive. The dry wines are made using fairly conventional methodologies, but this is not true of the Quarts de Chaume cuvée. I begin here with Savennières, before again moving onto Coteaux du Layon. On the next page I deal with Quarts de Chaume.
The two principle Savennières labels to be found here are the Clos du Papillon and Clos de Saint Yves cuvées, which each reflect the two parcels of origin. The fruit is harvested in several tries, the aim being to obtain fresh rather than richly ripe fruit, and certainly not botrytis; these pickings typically yield five or six distinct aliquots of wine which Florent will ultimately blend into his single-parcel cuvées. The fruit receives a very gentle pressing before fermentation largely in temperature-controlled steel, occasionally cement, Florent preferring materials other then wood, both for fermentation and subsequent élevage. The wines will typically be fermented and held en cuve, on the lees, for about nine months until ready for bottling, a process which brings minimal contact with oxygen.
