2019 Nicolas Joly Savennieres Clos De La Coulee De Serrant, Loire, France (750ml)

WINEMAKER'S NOTE:

One of the most fabled vineyards in all of France, this site bears its own appellation for 7 hectares. The steep vineyard plunges dramatically overlooking the Loire river. Tilled by both tractor and horse, its lean schist soils produce a unique nectar who's traits epitomize the notion of terroir. The vines are 35-40 years old (with some reaching 80 years old), planted 4800-6700 vines per hectare. The wine is never chaptalized and indigenous yeasts power the fermentation. Barrel fermented and aged, only 5% new oak is used with some stirring of the lees during the process. Light sulfuring happens at bottling following a very light filtration.

TASTING NOTES:

Produced from seven hectares of vineyards aged from 40 to 50 years old, Joly’s 2019 Clos de la Coulée de Serrant opens with a clear, bright yet enormously dense and complex bouquet of crushed stones, herbs and fine but dense and multilayered fruit that needs air to open up, yet it shows its class immediately. On the palate, this is a rich and intense, full-bodied, tight and concentrated yet elegant and stimulating salty Chenin with firm tannins intertwined with a crystalline acidity that carries this highly complex icon wine to a long and compact yet elegant finish. There is a remarkable purity, freshness and energy in the aftertaste that you sometimes might have missed in former vintages.

-Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, 98 pts