Loire 2022: First Impressions
It is always difficult to generalise about a Loire Valley vintage at such an early stage. First, because generalisations rarely if ever apply themselves well to this region, with its great diversity of grape varieties, soil types, climates, viticultural practices and oenological philosophies. Secondly, because this soon after the harvest, tasting opportunities are few and far between.
Nevertheless a few tentative generalisations can be made, before I being this report to a close.
First up, without a doubt the 2022 vintage is what the vignerons term ‘solar’ in style, the characteristics found within the wines reflecting the warm and sunny conditions of the vintage rather than the cooler-vintage profiles seen in years such as 2014 or 2012. This is most evident when on the hunt for acidity; most vignerons I have spoken to readily confess that this is a vintage with low acidity. Technical analyses put the figures in the same ball park as 2020 or 2018, in many cases lower.
Happily, however, many vignerons found that they were not dealing with runaway alcohol levels, as some had to do in these other warmer vintages. In particular 2018, in which one or two cuvées in Chinon declare 15.5% alcohol on the label (and the figure in the wine itself was, I suspect, a little higher, in at least one case, anyway), and 2020, a vintage in which I have discovered more than one or two wines from Vouvray with 14%. This provided some relief to vignerons who were hoping to avoid the combination of high alcohol levels with low acidities, which they find particularly unbalanced on the palate. Lower acidities with modest alcohol levels, meanwhile, apparently work much better together.
