Domaine des Baumard, 2015: Coteaux du Layon
Toc onclude this report, after my focus on Quarts de Chaume and the various cuvées of Savennières, I hereby ‘mop up’ with a trio of tasting notes on sweet wines which I tasted as a bridge between the dry Savennières and the much sweeter Quarts de Chaume. All three were of the Coteaux du Layon appellation.
There are three cuvées of Coteaux du Layon in the Baumard portfolio, and here I tasted one vintage of each. I began with the Carte d’Or, an attractive entry-level cuvée which is made using home-grown blended with some purchased fruit. In the 2011 vintage this showed a very nice freshness as well as some appealing sweet apricot fruit. Things usually get more interesting with the wine from the Clos de Sainte Catherine though, which is sourced from a single vineyard with sandy soils just outside Rochefort-sur-Loire, and this was the case here with the 2010 vintage. The wine showed a rather leafy freshness but which seems to have all the sandy-schisty minerality we would look for.
The third wine was the 2004 Cuvée le Paon; although from a difficult vintage, one that was troubled by rain, this remains an attractive wine which as well as showing appealing fruit character and plentiful minerality is also now showing some evolving complexity as it ages. (17/3/15)
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