Le Clos de la Meslerie, 2015 Update
Up on the hills above the valley of the Brenne, not too far from the likes of Vincent Carême and François Pinon, we find the vineyards of Le Clos de la Meslerie. I still remember the first time I met proprietor Peter Hahn (and his father, who was helping out for the day, as it happens) at a tasting in London. I approached the wines with some caution; this was before the currently ongoing revitalisation of Vouvray really got going, and I had become accustomed to experiencing disappointment when straying beyond the know quantities of Huet, Foreau, Champalou and Fouquet. To my delight the wines were good, on several levels. Not only were the wines themselves of good quality, coming from organically-grown fruit, but the whole philosophy of the domaine – harvesting from the clos in just a handful of tries, allowing the style of wine to be determined by the vagaries of the vintage (rather than diving up the tries for sec, demi-sec and so on) – seemed to me to be true to the Vouvray appellation.
On this most recent occasion I had the opportunity to taste not only old favourites, such as 2009 and 2010, but also to revisit 2011 once again, and to have a first taste of the 2013 vintage now that it has been blended. There were actually two tastings, in Angers and in London, and my notes below are presented separately.
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