Château Pierre-Bise: Layons & Chaumes, 2009
I’m looking forward to returning to the Salon des Vins de Loire again this year (just a few weeks away in fact), not least because once again I will be able to taste through the latest releases from Château Pierre-Bise. In the meantime, here are notes on five wines pulled from my cellar racks in December 2009, encapsulating the range from Coteaux du Layon Beaulieu through Chaume and Quarts de Chaume. I suppose to fully explore the quality levels from this region I should also include generic Coteaux du Layon and Coteaux du Layon-Villages, but I think the three categories presented below will suffice.
So remarkable was the Quarts de Chaume (and from 2001, not even a noteworthy vintage) that I featured it as my wine of the week after this tasting. This wine and the 2004 Chaume are of particular interest because of the recent appellation upheavals, which have seen the wines of Chaume renamed four times in recent years; for more on this, see my update on the 2001 Pierre-Bise Quarts de Chaume, or my guide to the Coteaux du Layon.
The tasting was also notable for the perceived differences in the three Layon cuvées, all of which were purchased at the domaine in 2003, and which have been stored by me ever since. On previous tastings of these wines I have been unable to tease them apart in terms of quality, but here today I found some more apparent differences, perhaps a result of the increasing maturity of the wines. I had a preference for the L’Anclaie here, followed by the Rouannières and then the Clos de la Soucherie; it is a close-run race though, I would certainly not turn my nose up at any of these wines, all of which are testament to the skill of Claude Papin. (5/1/10)
