Yannick Amirault, 2024 Update
I follow up this week’s reports on the latest releases from Charles Joguet and from Philippe Alliet with a handful of tasting notes on another leading source of red wines from the Loire Valley. This time, however, we have left the vineyards of Chinon behind and travelled north, crossing the Loire in the process, to the vineyards of Bourgueil (and St Nicolas de Bourgueil). Today’s report points the spotlight in the direction of Yannick Amirault.
As with my previous reports I began with a few wines from the 2023 vintage, but these notes have already been published in my Loire Valley 2023 First Taste report, and so I launch directly into the 2022 vintage again here, followed by a solitary representative from 2021.
The Wines
The 2022 Quartet began with a wine free of Cabernet Franc; this was not as sacrilegious as it sounds, as this was the 2022 Bâtard-Princesse, the Amirault family’s prototype white Bourgueil (it is not marketed as such, but it is how I see it) which is 100% Chenin Blanc.
Unlike Chinon the Bourgueil appellation does not allow for white wines, so this relatively recent addition to the portfolio is made within the IGP Val de Loire designation. How long will it be before the appellation rules are change to permit white wines in Bourgueil? I don’t know, but if the vignerons of the Médoc peninsula can have a white wine appellation (the new Médoc Blanc is set to appear in the next year or two) then I don’t see why they the same can’t be true of Bourgueil with its favourable clay, limestone and gravel terroirs.
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