Damien Laureau Savennieres Bel Ouvrage 2016
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Parker
Robert
Product Details
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Winemaker Notes
Bel Ouvrage is made from a blend of three terroirs located in the eastern part of Savennières near the village of Épiré. These are grey schist and rhyolite terroirs including one that is adjacent to the Coulée de Serrant. More backward and slower to evolve than Les Genêts, Bel Ouvrage is aged for 12 months in neutral French oak then 11 months in tank before bottling.
Professional Ratings
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Vinous
This Chenin Blanc, the 2016 Le Bel Ouvrage, is now starting to throw off its youth and develop aging characters of lanolin and earthy notes alongside cooked pineapple. There's clearly been a lot of care put into this wine - the delicacy and transparency of the juice is fabulous - and although it packs plenty of power and drive, presumably from the schist and rhyolite soils, it does so in an elegant and light-footed way. There's no sense of being forced, and harmony is achieved. A smidgen more length would be very desirable.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From rhyolite soils on sandy schist, the golden-yellow colored 2016 Savennières Le Bel Ouvrage offers a pure and aromatic, highly refined and elegant, discreetly flinty bouquet with perfectly ripe and heathy Chenin aromas perfectly and seamlessly intermingled with terroir-driven floral (white blossom) notes and hints of straw, brioche and nuts. The palate is perfectly round, finessed and elegant, revealing a thrilling amalgam of crystalline acidity, elegant fruit and a highly elegant texture, a combination that leads to a long, tight and tensioned finish with lemon juice and salty flavors. This is a pure and precise yet highly elegant and complex Chenin with a piercing mineral character. Excitingly mouthwatering and tensioned. Damien recommends lobster, langoustine and cooked crustaceans with soft spices (curry, ginger, saffron) as companions to this wine. Tasted in May 2021.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
Known for its delightful whites and sparkling Pétillant and Mousseux, made predominantly of Chenin blanc, Anjou has a temperate and dry maritime climate. The region's limited temperature variations are admiringly referred to locally as the “douceur angevine,” or “Anjou sweetness.” Fruit forward rosé and red wines from Cabernet Franc and Gamay merit Anjou its success within the Loire subregions.