Twenty-Five Years On: The 1990 Vintage
Last year’s tasting of the 1989 vintage, at 25 years of age, focused on Vouvray Moelleux, along with a few bottles of minor Bordeaux and Sauternes, and a lone German bringing up the rear. Following the ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ philosophy of which I have so long been a fan, this year’s theme is exactly the same.
Well, it would be, if I had any 1990 Bordeaux in the cellar.
As a consequence this small tasting of just eight wines focuses on sweet wines from the Loire Valley, mostly Vouvray but with representation from Montlouis-sur-Loire and a surprisingly good showing from Quarts de Chaume, and again I have a lone German to finish.
Tasting the Wines
Looking first to Vouvray, I have long admired the 1990 vintage in this appellation. Purists prefer the 1989 vintage, and to be honest I think I do too, but it is not that 1990 is a lesser vintage, more that it is a different expression of the appellation. The 1989 style is classic, pure and minerally, the fruit having dehydrated and concentrated on the vine largely as the result of passerillage. These wines still have a moderately pale hue and they will age for many decades yet, and I suspect the very best will show well when they hit one hundred years of age – if the corks haven’t given out, of course, and if they haven’t succumbed to oxidation (a problem with several of the wines here). The 1990 vintage, however, shows a much richer style, and here the concentration on the vine was much more dependent on botrytis. Thus the wines have a darker colour, and a much richer, spicier complexity, with oranges, quince and apricot richness, alongside all the usual minerally Chenin Blanc character. The wines will perhaps not be so long-lived, but they offer plenty of pleasure now and the best examples have the legs for the cellar.
