Domaine de la Taille Aux Loups [Jacky & JP Blot]

“With François Chidaine, Jacky Blot has been instrumental in taking Montlouis out of Vouvray’s shadow and establishing for it a reputation of its own—and a better one at that. Much of what he has done appears old hat today, but it was revolutionary at the time: organic viticulture, hand harvests, wild yeasts, barrel fermentations and no malolactic conversions”
–Vinous Media

 “Jacky’s wines, including his not-anymore Vouvray, are the perfect example: They’re bone-dry, less fruity than complex and austere. He believes sugar blurs chenin’s ability to transparently reveal its best qualities, which is why his winemaking is almost fanatically Burgundian, although he prefers to describe it as “the school of Montlouis.” He ferments all his whites in barrels. And rather than a cold, quick fermentation meant to highlight aromas, he borrows from Burgundy’s elite cadre, winemakers like Jean-François Coche (of Coche-Dury) and Jean-Marc Roulot (of Domaine Roulot): he exposes the grape must to oxygen before a long, slow fermentation and leaves the finished wine in steel tanks for months before bottling, which firms up the texture.”
-Jon Bonné

The future of Loire Valley Chenin Blanc is in single vineyard, dry, terroir-driven whites that can compete with the best in the world for precision, length, complexity and ageability. The late, legendary Jacky Blot and his son Jean-Philippe understood this clearly and focused their domaine on making these crystalline Chenin from their organic sites in the best parts of the appellation. Ever since Jacky first purchased eight hectares of old vines in Montlouis in the late 1980s, he transformed and built up the domaine into one of the Loire’s finest addresses. The beautifully cared for sites are allowed to sing to their full potential, without sugar, without battonage, without malo, and minimal filtration. This domaine is without question one of the inspirational leaders of this growing movement towards world-class single site wines.