Domaine de Bellivière: Tasting & Drinking
Having tasted the wines of Eric Nicolas on a number of different occasions, and having enjoyed them from my own cellar as well, it seems clear to me that there is vinous greatness here. The story of the man and the domaine so far presented sets the scene, I hope, for a description of unparalleled success in my tasting notes presented below. Having said that, it may also be that, in this cool, sometimes cruel, northerly appellation, there are times when Mother Nature is not so kind, and there is failure despite all efforts.
Certainly, I have found some reds to be leaning too far towards the vegetal, and some recent vintages have not been particularly benevolent, delivering a frosty or rotten blow to Eric’s Chenin Blanc vines. The 2011 vintage, a difficult season when it was not just Muscadet that was plagued with rot, can demonstrate the unclean scent of geosmin. Things were worse in 2012 and 2013, two more very difficult years. Indeed, ‘difficult’ probably doesn’t do the trauma of these two disastrous vintages justice. The vines were beset with diseases, and yields were slashed to a fraction of the normal figure. Since then Eric has taken the decision to apply more regular treatments in the vineyard using wettable sulphur and copper sulphate, perhaps six times during each growing season. Hopefully things have picked up for him since. So far 2014 and 2015 at least seem to have been kinder vintages in terms of yields, and there is good quality in the glass as well.
The 2016 was heavily frosted again, and the négociant business Les Arches de Bellivière was born as a result. Even so I liked the wines of 2016, with some very good reds produced as well as whites. Since then there have been some very smart vintages. I liked the wines in 2017 and 2018, and although I did not taste much from 2019 – Covid travel restrictions prevented this – what I did taste was tip-top. Then 2020 looked superb, and 2021 was very good for whites, with rather more introverted reds. Then came 2022 and 2023, two richer vintages which facilitated, along with the 2020 vintage, the reappearance of several of the domaine’s sweeter cuvées, many of which had not been seen for some years.
When buying here, look to these latter vintages where there has been most success. These wines demonstrate a rare vibrancy, freshness and definition, being richly imbued with floral and crystalline combinations. I was not over-stating the case when I likened Eric Nicolas to Richard Leroy, or Mark Angeli. He made superb wines which I fully intend to revisit again and again in the future, and I shall continue to maintain a stock in my own cellar along the way. And from what I have tasted so far, the wines made by Clément Nicolas offer just as much delight, with the added bonus of the rebirth of some of the region’s most rare vinous treasures. Elixir de Tuf, anyone? (3/1/08, updated 23/6/09, 24/5/13, 26/1/18, 18/1/25)
