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Patrick Baudouin Coteaux du Layon Cuvée Maria Juby 1996

With a slew of new names popping up in Anjou in recent years, along with the revitalisation of well-established domaines (often with their transmission to a younger generation), and an entirely new focus on precision and nervosité in dry Chenin, rather than sweeter styles, Anjou is arguably at this moment the most dynamic and exciting region in the entire Loire Valley.

If you had told me, five or ten years ago, that I would be writing those words, my response might simply have been to raise one eyebrow. Or maybe both. Yet it has come to pass; it is a revolution, and I have a feeling it is only just getting going.

One of several factors pushing domaines from sweet to dry is commercial – the dry wines fly out of the cellar door in a fashion never seen with the sweet wines (which, in the words of Jo Pithon, are not easy to make, and not easy to sell). And with this new focus comes a new level of quality. The Anjou appellation, once described by Richard Leroy as a “trash appellation”, was used when the late-season and harvest conditions made the production of sweeter Coteaux du Layon impossible; as a consequence the wines were sometimes not really that dry, came tinged (or loaded) with botrytis, and this necessitated a heavy dose of sulphites. Start with the ambition to make a dry wine in the first place, however, picking earlier to avoid much of this, and the results can be immeasurably better. Exciting, even.

So the region has changed. Is changing. And while I welcome these developments, a small part of me laments the increasingly esoteric image held by the sweet wines. They are wines I continue to adore; having recently returned from tasting in the region (encountering lots of dry wines, and not many that were sweet) I thought I should take a look back at a more traditional (and out-dated?) representation of Anjou.

Patrick Baudouin Coteaux du Layon Cuvée Maria Juby 1996

I made sure when I was in the Loire Valley a few weeks ago to catch up with as many domaines as I could, both newcomers and old favourites; Patrick Baudouin is undoubtedly one of the latter. Patrick came to wine late, his parents having left Anjou and the world of wine behind, the family moving to Paris when he was still a boy; as a young man he worked in a factory for many years, followed by a stint selling books. It was only in 1990 that he came back to the family’s domaine in Ardenay, a village sandwiched between the course of the Layon and the Louet, a little-known anabranch of the Loire, to take it on.

The domaine was established as Clos des Bruandières by Patrick’s great grandparents Louis and Maria Juby in 1920, and within a few years this enterprising couple were picking up gold medals for their wines. The transmission of the domaine through the family was not straightforward though, the wine bug skipping the next two generations and passing straight to Patrick. The matriarch Maria Juby was thus a significant figure in the development and eventual transmission of the domaine to Patrick, and today her name is synonymous with his very best, botrytis-driven sweet wines, usually with a grains nobles (i.e. 100% fully botrytised) designation. It has been applied to cuvées from both the Quarts de Chaume and Coteaux du Layon appellations, and has also appeared as a Vin de Table when a 2002 Coteaux du Layon carrying this name was refused the appellation because it had only 8.5% alcohol (at the time the minimum, depending on the concentration of sugar in the original must, was 10% or 11%; today I think it is 11% for all).

The 1996 vintage was an obvious candidate for a Maria Juby cuvée, especially in this era when the production of grand botrytis-driven sweet wines was the primary ambition along the course of the Layon. Although the weather during spring was disappointing, good conditions thereafter allowed the vines to catch up, and very dry conditions in summer aided the ripening. A little rain in September was welcomed, increasing the volume of juice in the berries, and permitting the vines to finish their work. The late-season conditions were not ideal for the development of botrytis, being relatively dry and breezy, but never say never on the Layon, where the production of botrytised sweet wines has always been a more regular occurrence than in Touraine. The vignerons held off, crossed their fingers, and finally the noble rot came, enough for Patrick to produce a grains nobles Maria Juby.

Poured from 500 ml bottle, in the glass the 1996 Coteaux du Layon Cuvée Maria Juby from Patrick Baudouin presents a truly remarkable colour, a rich bronze-gold, with shimmering red tones, very typical of a liquoreux, grains nobles, botrytis-rich style. Aromatically it feels rather advanced, degraded even, as it begins with a rapidly evolving, high-toned and fungal character. Within ten or twenty minutes, however, the nose settles into a groove with notes of baked quince, orange marmalade, praline, toast, black olive and black tea (very typical of deep botrytis infection), and with time it develops a finessed character with a sense of purity. This is amplified on the palate, which is more focused than the nose, with a velvety texture, a very dense core of sweetness and a rich, almost leathery, phenolic frame. This is an intensely liquoreux style, true to other Maria Juby cuvées I have tasted over the years. It is impressive, for sure, although like many (or perhaps all?) liquoreux grains nobles styles it misses some of the acidity and minerality which, for me, would tie it more certainly to its Ligérian origins. All the same, nitpicking aside, this is an impressive wine, with incredibly length, as you might perhaps expect. 93/100 (26/2/24)

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