Domaine Xavier et Agnes Amirault St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Le Vau Renou 2018
-
Robert
Parker - Vinous
-
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Deep red with purple hues, the St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil Le Vau Renou has ripe fruit aromas with hints of delicate spices. Full-bodied with an elegant structure and long finish on the palate, it is a beautifully balanced wine.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2018 St Nicolas de Bourgueil Le Vau Renou comes from two vineyards on the gentle slopes of St Nicolas, one on chalk, the other 100 meters away, 15 meters higher in altitude and with clay and flint soils. The wine displays a dark cherry color and opens with a deep, pure, refined and elegant bouquet of dark fruits, flint, meat and spices. Intense yet fresh and refined on the palate, this is a full-bodied, vital and finessed Cabernet Franc with remarkably fine tannins and perfectly ripe and elegant fruit. Perfectly balanced, the finish is pure yet intense and long, and the tannins structuring this potent wine should allow it to be aged for at least 15 years, even though it already tastes impressive today. Compared to the gorgeous Le Fondis, perhaps this is plummier, softer and less tensioned. Tasted
-
Vinous
The 2018 Le Vau Renou is a floral, perfumed and silky wine sourced from two plots: one on limestone slopes and the other on clay-flint. The wine is velvety and there's a fine quality to the tannin, like they've just done a meditation, attributed to the infusion rather than extraction of tannins - hand plunging, maceration over five weeks and partial maturation in amphora. While round from the clay soil component and the vinification, there's a sense of lightness and finesse despite the warm season. Refined, well-handled tannins coat the palate on the finish while pure cherry skin and Earl Grey tea flavors linger long.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This is a structured wine, still not quite mature but with immense potential. Its rich black fruits, spice and balanced acidity are developing well and this fine wine will be ready from 2024.
Other Vintages
2015-
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator -
Wine &
Spirits
Cabernet Franc, a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, is the subtler and more delicate of the Cabernets. Today Cabernet Franc produces outstanding single varietal wines across the wine-producing world. Somm Secret—One of California's best-kept secrets is the Happy Canyon appellation of Santa Barbara. Here Cabernet Franc shines as a single varietal wine or in blends, expressing sumptuous fruit, savory aromas and polished tannins.
An important red wine appellation in the Touraine district of the Loire, Chinon produces fanciful, light-bodied reds from the Cabernet Franc grape. Chinon also makes charming rosés from the same grape as well as white wines from Chenin blanc. But the reds give the area its fame. Often scented with fresh herbs, black tea and violets, Chinon reds show a lovely combination of fruit and acidity. However, styles have become more concentrated and ripe in recent years from improvements in vineyard management. Modern methods include planting grass between vineyard rows, using higher trellises and deleafing to increase sunlight to berries and therefore improve ripening. Even still, red Chinon is intended to be a light to medium bodied, refreshing wine to be enjoyed in its youth.
Fuller-bodied Chinons come from vineyard sites on the clay and tuffeau limestone slopes, usually from the southern exposed slopes of Cravant-les-Coteaux, and the plateau above Beaumont. Lighter styled wines come from the sand and gravel vineyards near the Loire or Vienne Rivers with the most refined examples coming from the area around Panzoult