Jacky Blot: Domaine de la Taille aux Loups & Domaine de la Butte

Jacky Blot has been making wine since 1989, picking the quiet village of Montlouis-Sur-Loire for his base, just down the road from Vouvray.

The unassuming stone building of Domaine de La Taille Aux Loups in Montlouis seems a million miles away from the grandeur of the nearby Château de Chenonceau. Located on the southern bank of the Loire river, it is just a short car journey to Vouvray, crossing the bridge to the north bank of the river.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores on 24 red and white wines by Jacky Blot

The estate is run by Jacky Blot and his son, Jean-Philippe. Their guiding principles of organic viticulture and small yields from a massal selection of old vines have helped to bring the wines to the attention of those with their ears to the ground. Not only are the wines among the most exciting, scintillating examples of Chenin in the Loire, but they remain incredible value considering the quality.

With the purchase of sister estate Domaine de La Butte in Bourgeil in 2002, Jacky Blot now makes both red and white wine under four appellations: Touraine, Vin de France, Montlouis-Sur-Loire, and Bourgeuil, spanning the gamut from dry sparkling wine all the way through to ultra-decadent botrytised wines.

Inspired by Burgundy

It’s fair to say that the house speciality is Chenin Blanc, especially given its proximity to Vouvray – just a 15-minute drive away – but Jacky and Jean-Phillipe seem to draw more inspiration from Burgundy than from their eminent neighbours.

This inspiration can be seen in the single-vineyard, terroir approach to many of their wines, as well as the organically-informed viticulture. The Blots buy barrels from three coopers, all Burgundian. They have even been exchanging ideas with Coche-Dury, including ways to reduce the impact of reduction.

No surprise, then, that La Taille Aux Loups also owns its very own clos, Clos de Mosny.

Purchased in 2011, this monopole is a walled and gated vineyard in Montlouis-Sur-Loire, said to be the largest in the Loire. This makes it too big for the walls to have any real effect on ripening by retaining or reflecting heat (unlike some of the smaller grand cru clos seen in Burgundy), however it does occupy a favourable site and so produces some of the domaine’s best fruit.

Although the majority of its whites come under the Montlouis-Sur-Loire appellation, two wines are made from grapes grown in the Vouvray appellation.

The Institut National de l’Origine et de la Qualité (INAO) had originally given indefinite permission to vinify these wines in Montlouis back in 1999, shortly after Jacky Blot purchased the parcels, but an appellation law change a decade later led to him being unable to use the Vouvray title unless he agreed to vinify them within the appellation borders.

Instead, he chose to relabel them as Vin de France and continue vinifying them in Montlouis. Considering the significant capital investment required for building a new winery, the wines are likely to remain VdFs for a long time yet, but the good news is that the wines remain excellent.

Winemaking

The red grapes from Domaine de la Butte are totally destemmed, and both red and white grapes are thoroughly sorted on tables to ensure only the best grapes are used. From here they are passed down into the cellar by gravity. The cool cellars, a cavernous ex-troglodyte dwelling carved out of the chalk bedrock, are large enough to store hundreds of oak barrels, in which all the wines spend time. The oak, however, is there to provide structure and texture rather than overt vanilla flavours.

The viticulture has developed over the last decade in response to vintage conditions. 2009 was a particularly hot year that made the team adjust its approach in order to avoid the ‘fat’ wines which were the product of the infamous European drought of 2003. Changes have included increasing harvesting machines from 40 to 120 to enable a speedy harvest at the perfect moment, while stylistically the wines have become less extracted and less reductive.

At one point, helicopters were used during the winter months to churn up the air and prevent frost, however this expensive and intermittent method has now been replaced by large fans which draw in the cold air and blast it upwards. Despite these measures, the domaine has lost half of its 2021 harvest to early April frosts, badly affected like many other producers across France.

Jacky and Jean-Philippe commented on the upward trend in temperature, which brings new challenges in the vineyard and winery. ‘We’ve seen average annual temperatures rise by 1.4˚C in the last 30 years, and most of that in the last decade,’ said Jacky. ‘When we started in 1988 it was difficult to ripen the fruit. The challenge today is to preserve tension in the wines. Pre-2006, we used to pick the same quantity of fruit every day during harvest. But then by the end we had overripe fruit. So we adjusted our way of working so that we were picking all our fruit at the same ripeness level.’

The 2019 vintage

All this experience has gone a long way in aiding the 2019 effort. A spring frost at the beginning of the season was compounded by drought conditions from June to September – just 8mm of rain by the end of August, although Jean-Philippe states that he would have preferred 50mm! By way of comparison, there was 70mm of rain in September alone in 2003.

The heatwave saw temperatures peak at 43°C, and the Blots were worried that they wouldn’t have anything to harvest. Thankfully the older vines that make up the majority of the Blot’s vineyards, with their deep roots, were able to draw just enough water from the soils. The yield for the whites was 36hl/ha, but just 22hl/ha for the reds. The 2019 harvest for La Taille aux Loups and Domaine de la Butte lasted from 12 September to 4 October. ‘2019 has the energy of a cold vintage, and the concentration of a warm vintage,’ says Jean-Philippe.

Tasting the 2019s along with some older vintages demonstrated just how vital and alive the wines are, particularly the dry whites. These wines will age very well indeed but it’s hard to see why you wouldn’t open a bottle today.

Wines are imported to the UK by Justerini & Brooks.

Reds and whites by Jacky Blot: Domaine de la Taille aux Loups & Domaine de la Butte:

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