From: Loire Valley, France
Varietal: Chenin Blanc
Taste: Lambert’s Chenin Blanc Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg bottling casts a bright lemon-gold hue and classic Saumur Blanc aromas of Anjou pears, green pineapple, beeswax, and perfumed tuffeau soil. Showing superb cut and tension on the attack, the wine presents a taut mouthful of pear-driven Chenin fruit framed by yellow limestone minerals and electric acidity. Complex suggestions of quince, sweet cinnamon, fresh ginger, lanolin, chamomile, and honeycomb emerge on the wine’s long finish followed by a tactile dusting of salty, lip-coating limestone minerals. This is bone-dry, “grand cru” Chenin for a song.
Pairing: Pair it now and over the coming three years with freshwater fish dishes, aged chèvres, recipes featuring chanterelle mushrooms, and roast pheasant. We also love pairing this wine with Lobster Rolls, dim sum, smoked salmon, and fish and chips. We found a recipe by Melissa Clark for Baked Fish and Chips (there’s a video in NYT Cooking!) to share with you today, santé!
This wine. 100% Chenin Blanc from a selection of small holdings just north of Breze in the neighbouring village of Saint Cyr en Bourg on light sandy clay soil over limestone. Whole-bunch pressed, the free-run juice is fermented with natural yeast and no added SO2 in stainless steel tank. Matured on fine lees for about five months, with partial malolactic conversion. Attractive pure and primary chenin fruit vinified totally dry with ample body to the palate supported by good acidity giving a wine of surprising texture and immediate pleasure. Unfined, but filtered at bottling.
