Patrick Baudouin, 2018 Update
I can’t remember exactly when I first tasted the wines of Patrick Baudouin (pictured), but it was clear from the outset that these were very good wines. It was at least twenty years ago, probably more, and Patrick had only returned to the region a few years earlier. Having been born in the region Patrick spent his teenage years in Paris, but inspired by the wines of the Foucault brothers at Clos Rougeard, and Mark Angeli at La Ferme de la Sansonnière, he had decided to return to Anjou in order to take the family’s vineyards – last worked seriously by his grandparents – in hand. In the course of the two decades and more that have since passed, Patrick has expanded his portfolio of vineyards, so that he now has a fascinating patchwork of parcels scattered about the Anjou, Savennières and Quarts de Chaume appellations. And by 2002 he had converted everything to organic methods.
So the wines, as I have already said, were good from the outset. but with Patrick at the helm, they got better, and today these are usually some of the most exciting examples of Chenin Blanc in Anjou I taste in any given vintage. They are taut, precise, minerally, reductive and pure, just my style of wine. They are made in small volumes, and are not necessarily easy to track down, and Patrick’s pricing suggests he has no lack of confidence in the quality of his wines. All the same, it is worth trying to get hold of a bottle or two, to see what this variety is really capable of in Anjou.
The Wines
Patrick poured a broad range of dry white wines to start, mostly in the Anjou appellation, with one vintage of his Savennières. He started with a cuvée new to me, La Fresnaye, which of course comes from the vines at Château La Fresnaye and which was previously worked by the now defunct (more or less) Pithon-Paillé. Indeed, when the Pithon and Paillé families were setting up as Pithon-Paillé after Jo Pithon had split from his financial backer, Jo and Wendy Paillé even lived in the draughty (and reputedly haunted) château. The 2015 Anjou Blanc La Fresnaye made by Patrick is attractive, filled with perfumed Chenin fruit. It was eclipsed by the 2016 Anjou Blanc Effusion, though, which had a greater sense of tension and minerality.
