Loire 2011: Touraine & Central Vineyards
As always the focus at Charles Sydney’s tasting leans slightly more towards those styles which drink earlier, and so just as Muscadet is dominant over Anjou, in terms of number of samples at least, so the wines of the central vineyards – Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé, Menetou-Salon and so on – feature more heavily than those from Touraine. Nevertheless, the Touraines did seem exceptionally thin on the ground this time compared to last year, although I suspect this feeling was in part due to the fact that two Touraine estates – Charles Joguet and La Taille aux Loups – were each showing their wines in a separate line up, alongside other vintages. I will be writing up these tastings separately, as is the case for all the wines of 2011 I encountered at the Salon des Vins de Loire a few weeks later, and so I have not included them here. But from Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé there was as ever a handsome selection of wines to taste.
Touraine
My vintage review provides a lot of background for Touraine, partly because I seem to have acquired a good number of contacts in the region but also because of the work of the Laboratoire de Touraine which furnishes us with some detail on technical analyses to complement the opinion of the vignerons. The message from those on the shop floor, so to speak, is that the vintage was difficult – with some of the same difficulties with disease and rot as experienced elsewhere – but that here the problems were manageable and thus there is the potential for wines of at least good quality to be made. Nevertheless, as far as Vouvray and Montlouis goes, my tastings and discussions with Tania Carême, Benjamin Joliveau and Jean-Philippe Blot have indicated that 2011 is a vintage for sec rather than moelleux.
