Les Roches Sèches

It was in 2012 that I was first introduced to the trio of young men behind Les Roches Sèches. I had never encountered them or their wines before, not surprising on reflection as they had only just started up a year or two earlier. At the time they only had four wines to pour, two white and two red, although the range did subsequently expand somewhat.

One of the reds was intriguing, a heady and aromatic infusion of cherries on the nose and on the palate, intense and undeniably rustic, and yet it still had some appeal. But it was the one of the whites that really registered with me; several years on, I can still recall the flavours and texture as I swirled the wine around my mouth. It was a Chenin Blanc (what else?) with obvious low-yield intensity, the nose lifted by some fine, floral nuances, and supported from beneath by a firm phenolic backbone. On tasting, I was immediately reminded of the wines of Richard Leroy.

I wrote about the wine in question, the 2010 Anjou La Guimardière, as one of my top picks from the 2012 Salon des Vins de Loire, but at the time I didn’t write about the domaine in any more detail. The reason for this was simple; I wanted to first become better acquainted with the wines, and the men who made them, led by Julien Delrieu (pictured above), before I started throwing any headline-grabbing similes and analogies about.

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