Château de la Roche en Loire, 2019 Update
The Touraine appellation is a valuable hunting ground for savvy wine drinkers. For many years the first port of call was perhaps Clos Roche Blanche, where Didier Barrouillet and Catherine Roussel once turned out charming and rather individual examples of Sauvignon Blanc, as well as a range of almost cultish reds. While that domaine has now gone the way of the dinosaurs, other trendy names have joined the fray, many of them taking on some of the old Clos Roche Blanche vineyards.
For many wine drinkers the wines of Catherine and Didier epitomised what could be achieved in this corner of the Loire Valley. They were not, however, the only ones in the Touraine region to make wines which could exceed the expectations of drinkers. Another is Louis-Jean Sylvos (pictured), who makes delicious whites, and remarkably successful expectation-busting reds at Château de la Roche en Loire.
The Wines
I met up with Louis-Jean again this year, and we started looking at two vintages of the white Touraine Azay-le-Rideau Cuvée Colette. Louis-Jean has long had a penchant for naming and renaming his various cuvées after family members, children and grandchildren, or even – as was the case with his 2015 Cuvée Marion et Thomas – to commemorate family weddings. Sadly for Louis-Jean he has been forced to bring this practice to an end; he now has a significant position in Russia, and his Moscow importer would have to pay a fee every time Louis-Jean changed the name of a particular cuvée. So from now on the white is Cuvée Colette, the red Cuvée Marcel, named for his mother- and father-in-law.
