A Visit to Domaine de la Noblaie, 2024
I stepped out through the back door into my garden, to be confronted by a wall of dry heat. The lavender appeared a little limp, while the newly planted laurels looked like they were holding up, thanks to my intensive watering regimen. The grass, however, had long given up the good fight; it had been parched to a pale and sickly yellow hue. A shade of yellow which, if it were to be introduced to the Dulux paint range, would be given some suitably sombre name, perhaps Scorched Wasteland. Or maybe Apocalypse Yellow.
It was August 2022, and I had come out to the Loire Valley for a few days, purportedly for a holiday. Some sun. Some swimming. And some sangrias, which is obviously French for Sauvignon, Sancerre and Savennières. I hadn’t really planned on making any visits – it was time to put my feet up for a few days.
But I hadn’t banked on 2022.
The summer of 2022 was marked by a prolong period of dry heat, sunshine and drought which brought an unprecedented early maturity to some fruit, with the early-ripening varieties – such as Melon de Bourgogne – being the most sensitive. Hearing that picking was already underway in Muscadet – in August, please note – I jumped behind the wheel and headed west, to spend the day checking out the progress on one or two domaines, most notably the Famille Lieubeau vineyards.
What I hadn’t realised is that the weather was so warm that there was already picking much closer to home, in the vineyards of Chinon. Even Chenin Blanc – traditionally regarded as a late-ripening variety, the timing of picking closer to the reds than it is to that for Melon de Bourgogne and Sauvignon Blanc – was yielding to the dry heat of the vintage. And it was not until I visited Jérôme Billard, of Domaine de la Noblaie, that this was driven home.
