Château de la Bonnelière: Tasting & Drinking
Marc Plouzeau is a dedicated vigneron who has transformed his father’s business, shifting away from his elder’s focus on his négociant business, and towards the running of Château de la Bonnelière as a self-sufficient domaine. In doing so he has expanded the vineyard considerably, increasing the surface area planted to vines several times over. In tandem with this, indeed beginning as soon as he took on the responsibility for the vineyards, he has converted it to certified organic viticulture, a move which is certainly admirable.
The style is rather reserved, the wines showing good colour, attractive aromatics, but with a slightly old-school character on the palate, some cuvées showing more structure than is really beneficial for the lighter texture the wines often display. Nevertheless some of the more upper-class cuvées are attractive, and I have on occasion enjoyed them over lunch in the town of Chinon itself. The same can be said of the sparkling wines.
While I applaud Marc’s reluctance to neuter the results of his endeavours with the addition of sulphites, I find the release of his top cuvées parcellaires – specifically Chapelle, Le Clos des Rochers St Paul and L’Intégrale – without any sulphite additions a tall, even the final dose before bottling which protects the wine from deterioration in bottle, to cause some problems. Looking back to ripe vintages such as 2022 the wines were dark, delicious and in the case of the top cuvées parcellaires clearly destined for the cellar. Several of these top wines, however, displayed mouse taint, and so I would advice caution when considering adding one of these to the cellar, a warning which comes attached to all the zero-added-sulphites cuvées here, even those I have enjoyed on tasting. This is not a new phenomenon, I see I found the same in vintages long past, such as 2014, even if I did not use the words ‘mouse taint’ to describe the wine.
Acknowledging that, there is good raw material here, and the results can be flawed but should not be dismissed. This remains, for the moment, a domaine to follow with interest. (4/9/19)
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