Loire 2009 at Ten Years: Red Wines
In this, the second of my tasting reports on the 2009 Loire vintage at ten years of age, we come to the region’s red wines. Naturally this instalment of this ‘Ten Years On’ tasting is not quite as expansive as my examination of the dry white wines, in which I tasted and reported on 27 wines. Even so, I still manage to report on eleven red wines from this region, all ten years old. Hopefully this is still a worthwhile report.
Any examination of the red wines of the Loire Valley is likely to be dominated by Chinon, and this return to the 2009 vintage is no exception. I have new tasting notes here from four of the appellation’s leading domaines, namely Philippe Alliet, Bernard Baudry, Charles Joguet and Domaine de la Noblaie. As a prelude, however, we do have a trio of notable cuvées from other domaines and appellations, these being Anjou-Villages, Cheverny and Bourgueil.
The Wines
All but two of the wines tasted here are 100% Cabernet Franc, and I begin with the first exception to this rule. The 2009 Côte de la Houssaye from Domaine Ogereau is one of the Loire Valley’s greatest examples of Cabernet Sauvignon, grown in this case on a favourable south-facing slope of schist overlooking the gently bubbling waters of the Hyrôme, a minor tributary of the Layon. This is showing very well at ten years of age and I have no doubt about its future potential, having tasted other much more aged vintages of this cuvée, and its forerunner the Cuvée Prestige, sometimes with fifteen or twenty years of bottle age.
