Domaine de Montcy, 2018 Update
The appellation of Cheverny is admittedly a rather obscure one. It is far from tiny, with 574 hectares at the last count, worked by at least forty different vignerons. Nevertheless it seems, along with its Romorantin-based counterpart Cour-Cheverny, to maintain an eternally low profile. In this context, when a new domaine or new vigneron pops up, I am duty bound to sit up and take notice. Especially when the vigneron in question turns out a range of characterful wines which are full of substance, depth and panache. These are certainly words that come to mind when thinking of the wines of Laura Semeria, doyenne of Domaine de Montcy.
On this most recent encounter with Laura and her wines we focused on the 2016 vintage, although I did also taste her entry-level Cheverny from the 2017 vintage. These were two extraordinarily difficult years for Laura; as a consequence of frost in 2017 she lost 90% of the crop, with yields as low as 7 hl/ha on some of her vineyards. And this came on top of a disastrous 2016 harvest, when the volume picked was down by 80%. Few have been hit as hard as Laura has in recent times. My tasting note on her 2017 Cheverny Blanc I have already published in my Loire 2017 report, so here I deal solely with 2016, as well as a couple of interesting non-vintage crémants which I have not encountered before.
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