While it's fair to say that Renaud Guettier won't be winning "label of the year" awards for his wines any time soon, quite frankly, when they taste this good, who cares?! Honestly, these are top level wines from the heart of the Loire Valley, quite unlike most you will have consumed from the region before.
Nestled in the village of Bueil-en-Touraine, Renaud works with small plots covering a total of 6ha of old parcels of Chenin Blanc and Pineau d' Aunis (an oldie native to the Loire). Think old vines between 70-130 years old (gulp!), which will give you some idea of the complexity and structure of his wines. While the terroir provides a combination of red clay, silex and limestone.
Renaud harvests by hand when the grapes are fully ripened, then transports them to the winery by horse. Nothing is hurried, he works to achieve the natural stabilisation of his wines, which is why his wines then spend a year or three resting in the cellar, sometimes certain cuvées may spend up to 60 months in the barrel, depending on the vintage. Coming from fully ripened grapes, the end results are quite special.
His whites showcase power, aromatics and density that are firmly rooted as full bodied expressions of the ever impressive Chenin variety. The style is rich with a taste of orchard fruit that remind slightly of Domaine Belargus for their waxy finesse and powerful intricacies, yet with more of an evolution through time. Impressively, they get better with age, with the potential to go on for two decades. While his reds offer some serious light bodied crunch that provide the right balance of purity, poise and fruit-crunch from a relatively unknown indigenous variety, which always keeps things interesting.
Yet for all that talk of ageing, these wines are appropriately released when accessible, which makes them ever so drinkable!
