The wines of François Pinon are considered among the finest of Vouvray. François, a former child psychologist, took over the estate from his father in 1987, and has steadily made a name for the estate over the past 10 years. He is a serious winemaker whose main focus is “to keep the typicity of both the appellation and the vintage” in all his wines.
The vineyards are in the corniche of the Vallée de Cousse. The soil is clay and silica on a base of limestone (tuffeau) with flint (silex) and the area is rated among the top sites in the appellation for Vouvrays of distinction and long life. Pinon follows a discipline of plowing the vineyards, not using chemical fertilizers and pesticides and, of course, he harvests by hand and uses no cultured yeasts. All new plantings are done by selection and no nursery clones are used; the vines are an average of 25 years old. He is slowly moving towards organic certification with confidence that these methods produce the finest fruit.
The alcoholic fermentation occurs in wood barrels. Then the wines are aged in stainless-steel or foudres (big casks, about twice the size of bar-rique Bordelaise) to obtain a balance between fruit and reduction. There is one racking to remove the heavy lees and the wine remains on its fine lees until bottling, which takes place a full year after the harvest to “finish” the wine. Rather than use a large dose of SO2, Pinon prefers to filter his wines to insure their stability and aging potential.
The Brut Non-Dosé is made in hommage (or possibly to show up) the group of grower-producer Champagnes that have become enamored with the Brut Sauvage style of wines. Though I have arguements with many of these wines from Champagne, the Chenin from this special site in the Loire has a natural richness to it which lends itself wonderfully to this style, and the results seem much more complete to me than most of the Champagnes I have tasted. The truth, however, is that though much of the sparkling wine from the Loire is mediocre at best, Chenin Blanc from the Loire, in the right hands, has the potential to make stupendously good sparkling wines. This is just such a case.
This wine is perfect with just about anything, but a recent pairing that was nearly perfect was with an asparagus flan. But if you ever wondered what to drink with those perennially hard to pair foods like asparagus, artichokes and peppers, this is the wine. Drink now – 2012 (preferably outside on a sunny day).
