Michel Redde, 2019 Update
I remember a harvest visit to the cellars of Michel Redde, improbably squeezed as they are between the vineyards of Les Loges to the west, and the Autoroute de l’Arbre which slices through the vineyards to the east. It was in 2013 and Thierry Redde himself was supervising the harvest, along with his two sons Romain and Sébastien. It had been a rather wet and cool season, and the pickers had been out in waterproof coats and sou’westers, but the quality of the rain-splattered bunches piled up in the crates looked good (which was more than can be said for the crop at some other domaines I visited that week).
Since that visit I have tried to keep up with progress chez Redde, and this is the latest of a number of tasting reports posted since that visit. Here I focus on the 2017 vintage, in which Sébastien (pictured) and Roman (their father Thierry is now increasingly retired) have made some pretty smart wines. We also looked back to the 2013 vintage though, so I could have a taste of what they achieved with those rather damp grapes.
The Wines
After a very decent 2016 Gustave Daudin, one of the best examples of the Pouilly-sur-Loire appellation there is, the wines tasted here went from strength to strength. The 2017 La Moynerie, the entry-level cuvée in the Pouilly-Fumé appellation, was very good, which is always reassuring. It’s not so difficult to make a good wine if you isolate your oldest vines, on your best terroir, and lavish them with care. Making a wine this good, from a large expanse of vines, is much more impressive. I would be more than happy if I were to find myself drinking a glass or two (or three) of this wine.
