Loire 2009 at Ten Years
I would be lying if I were to write anything that suggested I was not excited by the opportunity to revisit the 2009 vintage in the Loire Valley now that the wines have reached their tenth birthday. I began these ‘Ten Years On’ tastings of Loire Valley vintages with great enthusiasm four years ago, with a look at 43 wines from the joyful 2005 vintage, taking in everything from the cru communal prototypes of Domaine de la Pépière and Jo Landron to the excellent red wines of Yannick Amirault, Clos Rougeard, Bernard Baudry and Philippe Alliet. And of course there were some prime examples of the region’s many sweet styles, in particular cuvées from François Pinon and Philippe Foreau.
The Loire Valley is a diverse and extensive wine region. This disparate nature has a significant advantage, and that is when it comes to vintages, widespread failures in the Loire Valley are rare. Even in the most challenging vintages, such as 2013, there is always an appellation somewhere which manages to pull a rabbit from the hat (hint; in 2013, look to the sweet wines from the top names in Anjou). And so, while the years that followed 2005 failed to provide us with a repeat of the glories of that great vintage, there was always success somewhere, just waiting to be uncovered. In 2006, which saw a rather damp harvest, there were still some surprisingly good dry white and red wines, from the right addresses of course. In 2007 the dry white wines of Muscadet, Anjou and Touraine were good, but it was the delicious sweet wines of Anjou which took the crown. And in 2008, the wines to top up the cellar with were the moelleux and especially the demi-sec cuvées from Montlouis and Vouvray. My ‘Ten Years On’ tastings have, quite rightly, often reflected these regional patterns of achievement.
Now it is the turn of the 2009 vintage, though, and here we return to a year in which there was broad success, much more akin to 2005 than the trio of intervening vintages. It is a year in which there were excellent wines made in all the different regions of the Loire Valley, in all colours and all styles. Before expanding on this a little further, though, I first present a very brief (promise!) recap of the vintage.
