Loire 2016 at Three Years: Red Wines
There are parts of the wine world where the inclusion of a few red wines in a Loire Valley report might be seen as little more than an embarrassing afterthought. Indeed, mainstream opinion on this region shifts so slowly I am certain that I will have been cremated and my ashes run the full course of the Loire before some generalist wine publications wake up to the serious and ageworthy wines available from some of this region’s best domaines.
A realisation that a cellar can be stocked with long-aging wines from Chinon, Bourgueil, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil and the various Anjou and generic Touraine appellations is especially important today, because whereas exemplary red wine vintages used to come along once in a blue moon (1976, 1989 or 1996, anyone?), this is certainly no longer the case. With a stuttering start in 2003, picking up pace in 2009 and really getting going in 2014, the Loire Valley has enjoyed an unprecedented run of very fine vintages for red varieties. Take your pick from 2003, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, certainly 2018 and quite probably 2019.
Indeed, the choice is now so broad that wine busybodies with an interest in the Loire Valley, and obviously I am one of that number, now find ourselves picking and choosing from a selection of vintages which can be ranked not just on the basis of the white or sweet wines, but also the reds. Mere ripeness of fruit is longer the prime issue; in a climate where that is increasingly a given, the style within each vintage has become a more prominent driver of buying and drinking decisions. Cabernet Franc addicts (should this be abbreviated to Cabaddicts?) are no longer restricted to one vintage in the last ten, and choices must be made; 2018 is the ‘vintage of the century’ contender for hedonists, for example, while purists might prefer the nervous shimmer found in the 2014 vintage. And so what of 2016?
