Patrick Baudouin: Vineyards
Patrick Baudouin’s domaine is situated on the right bank of the Layon, not far from Ardenay, and on the opposite side of the river from Chaudefonds-sur-Layon. It is in fact just a few hundred metres from the infernal bridge which I drove across so many times during my original hunt. If I had simply turned in the opposite direction just once I would have found Patrick’s house and cellars sitting on a small promontory of land which is surrounded on three sides by a slow, meandering loop of the Layon. Here we are on the westernmost reaches of the Princé plateau, as in Petit Princé cuvée, from Domaine de Bablut.
In total Patrick Baudouin has about 13.5 hectares of vines to work with, scattered around not only Chaudefonds-sur-Layon and St-Aubin-de-Luigné, which is the next village upstream, but also around Rochefort-sur-Loire which lies a little to the north on the banks of the Louet, a distributary of the Loire. Most of the vineyards are planted on schist, this being the terroir that defines the Layon. They largely lie on the right bank of the river, which affords them a favourable south-facing aspect, although two of the plots in St-Aubin-de-Luigné lie on the left bank. The parcel in Rochefort-sur-Loire sits on the northern slopes, looking across to the vineyards of Savennières.
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