A Visit to Domaine de Juchepie, 2010: Recent Vintages
Perhaps surprisingly, Eddy doesn’t think Chenin Blanc to be very interesting in terms of aromatics per se, meaning it is not an interesting variety for fruit- or varietally-driven wines. “You won’t find any Chenin vin de pays“, he says. Chenin’s value, according to Eddy, is its ability to translate terroir, and also to carry all the characteristics of a great wine, of course, beyond simple sugar. Indeed , Eddy doesn’t look for sweetness, which he likens to the “scenery in a play“, a mere backdrop to the more interesting players of acidity, minerality and bitterness which he says are the marks of a good, truly sweet – in his words “noble” – wine.
Talking on the quality of recent vintages, he found 2007 to be very difficult, wet with much mildew, whereas 2006 was a much better prospect with rich botrytis, bringing complexity to the wine; there is perhaps not so much sugar, but good balance and plenty of minerality and acidity. As for 2005 although this vintage was superb for red wines in Anjou, at Juchepie where the focus is on white and sweet it was perhaps not so favourable, although it is an issue of style rather than quality. The wines are still very rich and where expected sweet, but this being a warm and dry vintage the conditions did not engender noble rot, and the fruit here was concentrated more by passerillage than by botrytis.
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