Foreau domaine du clos naudin vouvray petillant brut 1976

Foreau domaine du clos naudin vouvray petillant brut

Wine has been always stored in the underground wine cellar, below ground level, ensuring a steady temperature and humidity. The fill level of the wine bottles is excellent,
Region: Loire Valley
Appellation: Vouvray
Grape variety: Chenin Blanc
Colour: dessert wine
Producers and wineries: Clos Naudin

A sweet Vouvray with aromas of exotic fruits (pineapple) and peppery notes. Intense and flavoursome, the palate has pleasantly bitter aspects and a great aromatic persistence. This wine has great ageing potential.

The year 1976 was marked by a long, hot and dry summer, not just here in the Loire Valley but across much of Europe; it was a season and harvest that lived long in the memories of the viticulteurs who worked it. The result was excellent phenolic maturity in the region’s red varieties, a rare occurrence at the time (but much less rare today).
The harvest started early, the grapes fully ripened by the dry summer conditions, and of course picking early helped to capture desirable acidity. Those that held off in order to produce a later-picked sweet wine had more difficulties, as the acidities fell away in the warm conditions, and there was unexpected rain which in the warm conditions resulted in a rapid and widespread attack of botrytis.

About the producer
Two elements prevail at Clos Naudin: transmission of savoir-faire and the art of tasting. You won't be surprised that this Vouvray domain has, with each generation, lost not a bit of its soul or expertise, producing pure, taut, complex wines which traverse the years with remarkable ease.

Winedoctor
Here at Domaine du Clos Naudin, meanwhile, Philippe Foreau had yet to take up the reins, and it was his father André Foreau – Gaston Huet’s brother-in-law, by the way – who was running the domaine. Apart from turning out a panoply of super wines André is perhaps best remembered for his horticultural activities during World War II. If you have ever read the story of a Vouvray vigneron who buried all his best bottles in his vegetable garden so that they would not be pilfered by German troops, you were reading about André Foreau.
And so to the wine, the 1976 Vouvray Demi-Sec from André Foreau, as the label declares viticulteur at Clos Naudin. The cork slid out with ease in one piece (somewhat to my surprise) and the wine so liberated immediately impressed with its incredible colour, an intensely burnished, orange-gold, almost ochre hue. While richly pigmented it is also notable for its crystal-like clarity. The aromatics are just wonderful, with layer upon layer of complexities, some familiar and some less so, beginning with seams of dried orange and liquorice, nuanced with more fragrant notes of orange blossom and rose water. Little wisps of herbal tea and truffle later appear, the former a little more reminiscent of a good Coteaux du Layon than Vouvray, while the latter surely hints at a touch of botrytis here. The palate feels softly polished and very pure, and texturally it is still plush with residual sugar, with a little grip and fairly modest acidity, but a wonderful frame of powdery phenolics. It does not feel particularly driven or acid-bright, but there is still a captivating sense of energy and vigour to this, running into a very long finish. A quite brilliant demi-sec, and importantly – should you be sitting on a case or two – a wine with decades of aging potential yet. No alcohol declared on the label (different times!) and also interesting to note this was a 73 centilitre bottling. 96/100 (13/5/24)