Domaine de Bellivière, 2022 Update
Every time I make the drive down from the north coast of France to my pied à terre south of Chinon, I am reminded of just how distant Jasnières and the Coteaux du Loir are from the main body of the Touraine appellations.
Heading south, I am still nearly an hour north of Tours (at autoroute speeds) and close to two hours from home when I cross the river Loir. For context, I can make the journey from my house near Chinon down to the vineyards of Muscadet (skirting the entirety of the Anjou vineyard) in just an hour and a half. This long distance is undoubtedly why the appellations strung along the banks of the Loir are among those I have visited least often.
On the other hand, every time I taste the wines of Eric Nicholas of Domaine de Bellivière I am reminded of just how much potential there is in this northern outpost of the Loire Valley vineyard (and that I should be calling in here more frequently). Eric’s wines are nothing short of remarkable; his many cuvées of Chenin Blanc, of varying degrees of sweetness, come infused with tear-jerking minerality and heart-stopping acidities, which work together to give the wines the delineation and purity of cut crystal.
I have always thought it to be the more northerly climate which imbues Eric’s wines with this fabulous character, although I note that few (if any) of his peers can match him in terms of quality. Eric Nicolas is clearly one of France’s most talented vignerons, and I have long placed him on a pedestal alongside the likes of Richard Leroy. The good thing for us followers of Loire Valley wines is that the prices of his wines remain (for the most part) considerably lower than those of his Anjou counterpart. And because so many of them carry classically Ligérian but broadly unfashionable levels of residual sugar, I suspect they will probably stay that way.
