Château de Minière, 2022 Update
Having sat down with Kathleen Mareels-Van den Berghe to taste the latest vintages from Château de Suronde, I naturally also went on to take a look at the latest releases from her property in Bourgueil.
Château de Minière (pictured) has a long story to tell, the property having been built during the 15th century. It has something of a matriarchal tradition, women having been at the helm here for several centuries. Kathleen, who purchased the estate back in 2010, stands on the shoulders of these female forebears.
What Kathleen has achieved here in the past twelve years is impressive. She has restructured and consolidated the vineyard, with a focus on quality and sustainability. She reorganised the portfolio of wines to reflect the quality of the raw material, at the same time commencing the conversion to certified organic viticulture across the entire domaine. As if that were not enough, keen to expand into the production of white wines, she also planted Chenin Blanc, before deciding to bite the bullet in Anjou, with the purchase of the aforementioned Château de Suronde.
In this short report I take a look at the very latest releases from Château de Minière.
The Wines
I started with two of the estate’s sparkling wines, the Bulles de Minière cuvées, presented in both rosé and red. These are delightful easy-going examples of the style which would make a great apéro in the case of the rosé, while I can’t help thinking the red would go down well at a barbecue, although with a dosage of just 10 g/l – much drier than many other sparkling reds from the Loire Valley, and beyond – it would probably work well in a wide variety of settings.
