Loire 2016 First Taste: Touraine
Some of the Touraine appellations are the most acclaimed in the entire Loire Valley, and rightly so. The white wines of Vouvray and red wines of Chinon, in particular, are benchmarks for their respective varieties, Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc. The support acts, including Montlouis, Jasnières, Bourgueil and others make for a strong cast, and some wines from these appellations certainly manage to outshine their grander counterparts from time to time. Add in Romorantin from Cour-Cheverny, Pinot Noir in Cheverny and the many fine examples of Sauvignon Blanc from the generic Touraine vineyards and this region is clearly rich in A-list appellations.
Sadly for some of the vignerons concerned, the story of the 2016 vintage did not have a Hollywood ending. The frost lottery was just that, and while some found they had lost just 10% or maybe 15%, which is bad enough, others came to the sad realisation that they had lost half the crop. Others, tragically, lost pretty much everything.
The Touraine Story
One of the regions that was less severely affected was Vouvray. “We lost between 15% and 20%”, said Vincent Carême, “some with the frost, a little with the mildew, a little with the flowering. Like others we had the dry weather as well, but here in Vernou we have more clay, so the effect of the dry weather on the yields was not so bad. It would be much worse with sandy soils”. Alexandre Monmousseau of Château Gaudrelle echoed these words. “The 2016 vintage necessitated more attention to detail than any previous vintage”, he told me. “We had frost and rain to start, and we lost maybe 40% in the frost. This was followed by a heatwave and hydric stress, then more rain, then the return of the heatwave”. The situation on the opposite bank of the Loire, in Montlouis, was tragically much worse. François Chidaine (pictured), for example, lost 90% of his crop, and Jacky Blot of Domaine de la Taille aux Loups had a very similar experience. Here in Montlouis, which seems to be particularly prone to frost, the 2016 vintage joined a run of frost-afflicted years which also included 2012 and 2013 (and 2017 of course).
