Loire 2016 at Three Years: Demi-Sec & Moelleux
In this, the final report on the 2016 vintage at three-and-a-bit years of age, brings us to the sweet wines. And, for various administrative reasons, also to a handful of demi-sec cuvées. While I appreciate that the demi-sec and moelleux styles are really about as similar as Cheverny and Chinon, the number of wines released in both categories are relatively small compared to the dry white and red wines, and so condensing them into one report makes sense.
As I have already discussed in my introduction to this report, the growing season was characterised by a prolonged bout of warm and dry weather, with excellent conditions from late in the month of June right through to October. This meant there was some potential for producing sweet wines based on passerillage, the grapes dehydrating and sweetening on the vine. There was, eventually, a little noble rot, although it came very late in the season, which facilitated the production of some wines with botrytised concentration and complexity. Neither style was produced in prodigious volumes though(you need to look to the 2018 season for that); not only do passerillage and botrytis both reduce volume at harvest, also bear in mind many vignerons were starting out with a potentially small crop anyway, after the frost.
The Wines
The wines featured here come from less than a handful of favourite domaines. Starting with the demi-sec cuvées in Vouvray, from Vincent Carême and Philippe and Vincent Foreau, have breathtaking purity and focus. The 2016 Tendre from Vincent has such a delicate charm I could not help falling in love with it when I tasted it at the domaine, and found myself adding a case to my order alongside his dry, sparkling and sweet wines. The 2016 Demi-Sec from Vouvray’s ‘other’ Vincent and his father Philippe, however, has remarkable tension and fabulous concentration of fruit; tasting it, I was reminded of the 2008 vintage, a fantastic year for the demi-sec style in the Vouvray and Montlouis appellations. The moelleux cuvées may have higher levels of residual sugar, but on the whole they will have to put on a real show to achieve higher scores than these two.
