Damien Laureau, 2023 Update
There is a small group of vignerons who provide a growing and increasingly undeniable body of evidence that Savennières and Savennières-Roche-aux-Moines deserve renown not only as great terroirs for Chenin Blanc, but also as appellations deserving of global attention, alongside the great white wines of Burgundy, Alsace and Bordeaux. A long-standing member of this group (a founding member, in fact!) is Damien Laureau, a vigneron who I have been following since I was wearing short trousers (this is possibly an exaggeration).
It is only a year or two since I made a mid-pandemic visit to see Damien and tour his many vineyards with him, in what was an eye-opening window onto his world. On this occasion I met up with Damien Laureau in Angers to taste through a mix of forthcoming releases as well as one or two older vintages. Among the former, the most noteworthy is undoubtedly his new Champ Bourcier cuvée, appearing here in its inaugural vintage, the fruit sourced from vines on rhyolite, a completely new venture for Damien and his wife Florence. Among the latter, I was surprised to encounter (for the first time) his 2017 Aurore, a frost-response cuvée which blended fruit from across all Damien’s vineyards.
The Wines
It is perhaps worth commenting first on one cuvée I did not taste, and that is Damien’s relatively new jeunes vignes cuvée L’Alliance, which usually takes fruit from all the domaine’s young vines, from across various parcels. There is none produced in the 2021 vintage, as a consequence of that year’s frost. Instead, he has bought in fruit as he did in 2017 to make a Vin de France cuvée, Les Raisins d’Amitié (not tasted here – maybe next time?).
