Domaine de Juchepie, 2018 Update
Located on he outskirts of Faye-d’Anjou, which is the very first of the Coteaux du Layon villages the Layon meets as it flows towards the Loire, Domaine de Juchepie enjoys an enviable position. It sits at the side of the road that runs from Faye-d’Anjou down to Beaulieu-sur-Layon, separated from the waters of the Layon by a kilometre of vineyards and other vegetation. That might seem at first glance a rather long distance, but in truth it is not too far, and on cool autumn mornings river mists creep up over the vineyards, their advance spurred on by the presence of a small stream, the Ruisseau de Saint-Martin, which runs down to the river alongside the Juchepie vines.
No prizes, then, for guessing that Eddy (pictured) and Mileine Oosterlinck, the Belgian proprietors of Domaine de Juchepie, turn out a very convincing portfolio of sweet, botrytis-influenced wines, from the entry-level Les Churelles up to the infrequently released flagship cuvée, Quintessence. In recent years, however, I have also come to see the high quality within their dry wines. Some cuvées are on a par with those made by some of the most famous names of Anjou, including Richard Leroy, and as the prices of Richard’s wines head northwards it would seem most of us are going to need more realistic alternatives.
The Wines
The wines reported on here were tasted with Eddy and Mileine in Angers. We started off with a 2015 Les Monts, a very attractive wine but it paled in the presence of the 2014 Le Clos, not only from a more privileged site but from a much more convincing vintage (for white wines, anyway) as well. I was certainly impressed by the 2015 La Jarre, which showed better than I recall from my tasting last year, with no sign of any oxidation here. Indeed, on a whole it was fresh, cool and charismatic. I held a slight preference for the 2016 Le Paradis though, even if right now it is brimming with oak; this is a wine which needs to be left in the cellar for between five and ten years for it to become approachable.
