Domaine de la Taille aux Loups, 2012 Update
For a day or two earlier this year I lived and breathed Domaine de la Taille aux Loups. What was the reason for my sudden and total immersion in this estate, and the Vouvray and Montlouis-sur-Loire appellations, you might ask. Hah! As if I need a reason?!
Of course, being truthful, there was indeed a very rational justification for my sudden obsession with this leading Montlouis-sur-Loire domaine; I had just read a report by wine journalist Ella Lister on the wines of Jacky Blot (pictured below) and in particular the Domaine de la Taille aux Loups (as opposed to his other estate Domaine de la Butte, in Bourgueil), published in the World of Fine Wine (issue 35, p.111). Ella’s report on a tasting dinner with Jacky and the team from Goedhuis & Co. was very welcome, but there were nevertheless one or two inaccuracies and assumptions that in my opinion needed to be rectified. In addition some statements made by Jacky himself, and recorded for posterity by Ella, seemed quite controversial; I felt some contrasting opinion was warranted. I decided the task of providing that opinion should fall to me, and in order to continue the debate I soon put my fingers to work on the keyboard.
By the time I had finished exorcising my Montlouis-Vouvray-Lister demons I had tapped out more than 2300 words, subsequently published in the World of Fine Wine (issue 36, p.206). Its scope and length was of Schildknecht-like proportions (well, perhaps halfway there, at least); sprawling over two-and-a-half pages in the magazine, not only was my letter longer than the original article (I say this having merely eyeballed it – I’m not sufficiently pedantic to do a word count on it) but it was probably the longest article on the wines of the Loire ever to have been published in the World of Fine Wine. This is an excellent and erudite publication, but it does have a notable leaning towards ‘classic’ and more heavy-hitting regions, namely Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, California, Port and the like. Hopefully I have done something to redress the balance, even if the correction is very slight.
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