Château Pierre-Bise, 2009 Update
A meeting with Claude (pictured below) and Joëlle Papin of Château Pierre-Bise is always a delight, not only because of the consistently high standard of the wines and the thought-provoking range of the portfolio, particularly the treatment of the varied terroirs of the Coteaux du Layon appellation, but also because the duo are intrinsically charming and enduringly friendly. Papin has an intellectual approach to wine, to the vineyards, to the soil, and there are few characters more appealing in my opinion than the approachable academic.
The 2007 vintage was not one that held great promise for me; as I have written elsewhere, the weather was hardly favourable. Nevertheless a number of vignerons still seem to have turned out good wines, and judging by the bottles sampled at the 2009 Salon de Vins de Loire with Claude and Joëlle the Papins are undoubtedly in this group. Both dry and sweet are very good, although I think perhaps the former are of a higher quality.
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