Loire 2014 at Ten Years: White Wines
Having published brief reports on the 2011, 2012 and 2013 vintages at ten years of age, my look back at 2014 sees the return of a more extensive report, a sign of the quality to be found within this vintage. This report brings 70 new tasting notes onto the Winedoctor pages (and into the searchable tasting notes database), and of these 40 are presented below. These are all white wines, from the length of the Loire, from Muscadet all the way up to Sancerre. I also include here a handful of sparkling wines.
Referring specifically to the white wines, this is a vintage renowned for its combination of delicious fruit and racy acidity, and it quickly garnered plaudits and praise. Placing the wines in the context of contemporaneous vintages, particularly those that came immediately before it, it is not hard to see why.
Looking first to the 2011 vintage, this was the topsy-turvy year, with an incredibly warm spring and autumn which sandwiched an unseasonably cool summer. The effect of this disturbed weather pattern was largely negative, the most noteworthy problems grey rot and a disparity between technical and phenolic maturity (although the late season conditions did produce some marvellous sweet wines, but let’s stick with the dry wines for the moment). The 2012 vintage was also difficult for the later-ripening varieties, although early ripeners did well, so Muscadet, Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and the like were great. Conditions were especially challenging in Vouvray which saw torrential rain turn roads into rivers, and the vintage produced some rather loose and lightly structured wines. Then there was the rather damp and dreary 2013 vintage (Vouvray suffered again, this time with a destructive summer hailstorm), not one that many vignerons look back on fondly.
Of course there are always exceptions to the rule; maintaining my focus on the dry whites for the moment, the 2011s from Richard Leroy, for example, were super, and some of the 2012s from Claude Papin turned out very well in the end, but not one of these three vintages excelled.
Against this backdrop the 2014 vintage – which started off with worryingly wet weather dominating, but which ended with a glorious Indian summer – brought a smorgasbord of vinous delights to please all palates. The result was an array of dry whites which combined toothsome and fruit-rich substances with vibrant acidities, wines which were delicious young and – hopefully, but this is what we are here to find out – still delicious with a little bottle age.
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