Domaine des Pothiers, 2022 Update
It was finding joy in the wines of Domaine Sérol which convinced me that it might be worth taking a look at the wines of one of their neighbours in the Côte Roannaise appellation, Domaine des Pothiers. It feels like a long time ago since I first met and tasted with proprietor Romain Paire (pictured below), so looking back at the date of my original profile of this domaine I was surprised to see that just four years have passed. Imbibing significant quantities of Gamay-Saint-Romain must have had some influence on the part of the brain that deals with the sense of time passed, because it feels more like ten.
Whether it has been four years or ten, however, what I have learnt during the time that has elapsed is that the wines of Domaine des Pothiers are frequently nothing less than blooming delicious. This was driven home when writing my 2021 Update on Domaine des Pothiers, one of the shortest tasting reports ever published in the history of wine writing, featuring just three wines. Well, during the time of Covid I was grateful for every sample received, and three was more than some sent. I mean, some Bordeaux first growths only sent one bottle!
That was a joke, obviously. They all sent full cases of magnums.
Seriously, though, one advantage of receiving sample bottles at home is that you can linger over the wine for a lot longer. And what I learnt doing that is that the wines of Domaine des Pothiers are very, very easy to drink. All that juicy black fruit (something about Gamay-Saint-Romain, or the granitic and basaltic soils here, engenders the wines with a deliciously dark flavour profile quite different to the lighter Gamay Noir à Jus Blanc of Touraine). All that mouth-watering acidity. And those occasional wisps of saline minerals too, all combine to form an irresistible glassful.
So when I finally managed to return to France in what is hopefully the post-Covid era (fingers crossed, but I am far from relaxed about it), I made sure I checked in with Romain and his wines. As with my recent Domaine Sérol update, I tasted first in Paris in November 2021, and second in Angers, in March 2022. Again, where the same wine cropped up, I have combined the tasting notes. And yet again, to my surprise, given that only a few months separated the two tastings, this only applied to two wines.
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