Domaines Minchin, La Tour Saint-Martin Pommerais, Menetou-Salon, Loire, France 2021

With its delicate, spicy aromas and rich, softly textured fruit, this is a lovely Pinot Noir, not a heavyweight but with plenty of finesse and a long finish. Still youthful, it has the potential to become more complex with additional bottle age. Given the quality, this is reasonably priced and shows the level of quality that Pinot Noirs from the Central Vineyards now achieve. The vines are planted on clay-limestone over Kimmeridgian marl. The hand-harvested grapes were fermented in conical wooden vats and matured for six to eight months. The domaine was certified organic in 2022.