This was an attractive bottle we enjoyed about a week ago. Deep coloured it had dense ripe black fruit – prune and plum. Some evolution and is drinking well now – soft tannins are well integrated – but there is no rush to drink this 2005 up and it can happily be kept for at least another two or three years or more.

Christian Papin in September 2010

Jean-Hubert and Jean-Yves Lebreton tasting

Tried taking photos of Jean Hubert and Jean-Yves sitting around an interestingly lit table with decanters. Unfortunately I couldn't get the lighting right. Ideally they would have been sat the other side of the table but that would have been difficult as it was against the wall. Anyway I like to think there are some intruing effects here, even though it is too dark despite some adjustments on photoshop.

Table with decanters

Nigel Wilkinson (RSJ Restaurant) tasting @Domaine des Rochelles

 

8 November 2009

Christophe Daviau checking Chenin Blanc in mid October 2009

I caught up with Christophe Daviau (Domaine de Bablut, Brissac-Quincé) on the phone this evening:

Christophe: "We finished on Thursday 29th October when we were still enjoying the summer weather. I'm very glad that we finished then as we have subsequently had quite a lot of rain. On the Friday it was still fine and summery but it got very humid on Saturday and we had rain on Sunday 1st November and we continued to have rain during this week.

Domaine de Bablut, Grandpierre Chenin Blanc 2009

"Although we will obviously have to see what the wine is like once it has finished fermenting, I'm very happy with the Coteaux de l'Aubance. The last tri of Grandpierre was 19% potential. I'm also happy with the Anjou Blanc sec. For the reds the quality is good but it would have been good to have had about 10hl/ha more. I haven't done the calculation yet but I estimate that the yield for the red was around 30hl/ha."

Cabernet Franc destined for 2009 Petra Alba, Anjou-Villages Brissac