Loire 2002: Tasting in 2015
Thirteen years on is perhaps a rather strange anniversary on which to retrieve these bottles from the cellar, but one or two were pulled simply as my hand landed on them and, having enjoyed each one in turn, before I knew it I was on a roll. And why not? After all, wine is not for hoarding and collecting, it is for drinking and enjoying. Besides, in most cases I have multiple bottles, and so it will be no hardship to return to the wine with the next bottle at a more conventional moment. Such as when they hit their fifteenth birthday which is, after all, just a couple of years away.
Looking back, thirteen years on, based I hasten to add not solely on the wines tasted for this rather selective report but on many other tastings over the years, the vintage was particularly successful in Vouvray and Montlouis, with many other white wine appellations in Anjou, Muscadet, and the Central Vineyards following suit. The red wines were good across the board, but they are framed by their acidity more than anything else, and for my palate I prefer the extra texture and confidence found in 2003, 2005 (a really great vintage), 2009 and 2010. That is not to say it is a bad vintage, just that it is not top tier, or if it is then I think it is at the bottom of the top tier (I realise here I am beginning to sound like Paul Pontallier of Château Margaux, as he spoke of 2014 Bordeaux being the lesser of the best, so time to move on I think).
Few Loire Valley vignerons have much to say on the vintage now, although by chance when I was tasting with Philippe Foreau of Domaine du Clos Naudin last year, deep in the cool air of his cellars, conversation turned at one point to this vintage. “It is one of my favourite vintages”, Philippe told me, and I was not in the least bit surprised. In Vouvray the conditions were such that the full range of wines could be produced, from sec right through to the première trie moelleux cuvées. On this basis it is a very strong vintage, and on tasting the wines I have indeed found the quality to be tip-top, the dry wines pithy and concentrated, the sweet wines elegant and balanced, a more classic style than the richer, golden sweet wines of the vintage that followed.
