The Wines of Domaine Bourillon Dorléans, 2022
In my reports from Vouvray this year I want to look beyond the appellation’s usual suspects – you probably already know who I mean, but if not I am thinking of Vincent Carême, Julien Pinon and Philippe and Vincent Foreau, among others – and instead turn the spotlight onto some less familiar names. After two ‘introductory’ reports on the wines of Michel Autran and Sébastien Brunet, I turn now to one such domaine, one I have not featured before on Winedoctor.
Domaine Bourillon Dorléans is located in the western periphery of the appellation, not too far from the Aéroport de Tours and the city’s semi-industrial suburbs. This is the commune of Rochecorbon, one of eight eligible for the Vouvray appellation. It is almost as far west as you can go within the appellation; downstream, the commune of Tours also has eligibility, but only one or two parcels of vines remain here. Most of the eligible land around Tours has disappeared under housing schemes and zones industrielles, the latter home to row after row of pre-fabricated buildings housing businesses with curious names such as Experf, Motul and Fitoform. No, I have no idea what these business do, either.
Thankfully the airport acts as a rather effective barrier to the encroaching city suburbs, as a consequence of which Rochecorbon remains dominated by vineyards and arable agriculture rather than rows of these business-boxes. Fields of vines and wheat swirl around a central valley, within which the village of Rochecorbon is nestled. It is on the side of one of the roads climbing out of this valley that we find the cellars of Domaine Bourillon Dorléans. It sits in a prominent position on a corner, the land climbing steeply behind it, within which the domaine’s cellars have been carved out of the region’s soft Turonian limestone.
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