Bonnigal-Bodet: Tasting & Drinking
The Touraine Amboise appellation has few benchmark domaines; only two or three names immediately spring to mind, and it seems clear to me that Bonnigal-Bodet should be included among their number.
The main attraction here is the collection of cuvées parcellaires in white that the domaine offers, representing the various clay, flint and limestone terroirs which sit upstream and downstream of the cellars on the Rue d’Enfer in Limeray. The style here is modern and stylish, with very pure and taut fruit character, wrapped up in a very modern and flinty shroud of reduction. I know one Master of Wine who was poured one of the wines blind by a sommelier and he guessed that he was drinking Burgundy; being honest, I can see where that stab in the dark came from. The reduction spread across the portfolio somewhat neuters identifiable Ligérian traits in these wines.
Having said that, I must also accept that these comments were written with my certified Loire Valley nerd-hat on, a rarely seen hat worn by a miniscule number of wine drinkers. Most imbibers of Chenin Blanc are looking for quality, freshness, balance, energy and interest in their wines, and the wines of Bonnigal-Bodet have these features in spades. I must also ensure I don’t fall prey to double standards; after all, some vintages from Richard Leroy have been powerfully reductive, and oaky in their youth, much more so than anything from Bonnigal-Bodet, and I do not consider those wines any less Ligérian for it.
I should also confess I have bought a couple of the white cuvées parcellaires for my own cellar. This is perhaps a more powerful endorsement than any words.
