Jacky and Joëlle Blot are holding their annual Spring open days at Domaine de la Butte in Bourgueil from Thursday 2nd June until Sunday 5th June. They make some of the best Bourgueils to be found. 

  

2010 harvest in mi-pente: the best parcel of La Butte

2010 Cabernet Franc@La Butte

2009 Chinon, Domaine de la Perrière, Baudry-Dutour

Over the past two days we have revisited a couple of 2009s from Chinon and Bourgueil respectively. I had previously tasted these wines – Domaine de la Perrière, Baudry-Dutour and Le Haut de la Butte in December. Both appear to have taken on a little more weight since December, especially the Perrière, although the accent here is still very much on red fruits with quite marked refreshing acidity in the finish.   

The 2009 Le Haut de la Butte remains considerably more softly opulent and concentrated than the Perrière as one would expect given that Le Haut is quite a bit more expensive than B-D's Perrière. 

These two wines indicate that the tough period some of the 2009s went through in mid-late January is now over and the normal charm of the 2009 reds has returned.

2009 Perrières, Domaine de la Butte

Having discussed with Jacky the purchase of Le Clos Mosny (Montlouis), we moved on to tasting the 2009 Bourgueils starting with the soft, supple and charming La Pied de la Butte, which was bottled in April 2010. Dominated by red fruits it includes press wine that is aged in barriques of four and five years old. This is a wine to enjoy young, although the 2009 would happily keep two or three years but I'm not sure there is much point – better to enjoy the youthful fruit and buy one of la Butte's more structured cuvées for aging. La Pied was 7€ but is now sold out at the domaine and you will have wait until April 2011 for the 2010 to be available.

2009 La Haute de la Butte

The 2009 La Haute de la Butte (bottled at beginning of September 2010) represents a considerable step up in terms of concentration, quality and complexity as one would expect as La Haute is priced at 12€. The 2009 is deeper in colour with some aromas of sous-bois and gibier. This is more black fruits than red. It is quite structured but with ripe tannins surrounded by the fruit. This certainly needs food and could easily be cellared for five years or so.

Les Perrières (15€ – bottled end of October 2010) is another step up with opulent, concentrated black fruits including black cherry but not over-ripe and a freshness in the long finish. Certainly, although the 2009s are immediately seductive, it would be best to put this away for a couple of years and it has the potential to age for 10-15 years.

We also tasted a impressive sample of 2009 Mi-Pente (18€ – available March 2011), which has now come out of barrel and is in stainless steel awaiting bottling at the end of February - beginning of March. Although Jacky believes that long-term both his 2008 and 2010 Mi-Pente will be better than 2009 (a more lauded vintage for reds), the 2009 probably has the potential to age a good 15 years.

The 2009 reds remind me to an extent of the 1997s, which like the 09s were always crowd pleasers with soft opulent fruit. I had my doubts about how long the 97s would last. In fact they have held up pretty well, although I think they may now be beginning to decline and certainly they haven't aged long term as well as the 1996s. The 97s have, however, given much pleasure. The difference I think between the 97s and the 09s is that the latter appears to have more structure. Certainly the Cabernet Franc reds from the fine trio of 2008, 2009 and 2010 will provide some fascinating comparisons in the future.