Chinon Le Domaine 2021 | Domaine Bernard Baudry | Loire

Bernard Baudry founded the domaine in 1975 with two hectares in Cravant-les-Coteaux, the village that accounts for almost half the production of the Chinon AOC. Trained in Beaune and experienced as an oenological consultant in Tours, he built one of the appellation's absolute reference points over the following decades. His son Matthieu, who studied in the Mâconnais and Bordeaux and completed internships in Tasmania and California, joined in 2000 and now runs the estate alongside his father. The 30 hectares have held organic certification since 2006 — with farming practices that long predate it — and in recent years the estate has also incorporated biodynamic work.

Cravant-les-Coteaux concentrates the soil contrasts that define Chinon's diversity. Les Granges (9 ha, vines from 1985–1988) occupies the gravel and sands of the ancient Vienne riverbed: freshness and fruit for early drinking. Les Grézeaux works vines planted in 1945 on alluvial gravels of flint, quartz and granite: the most fleshy and age-worthy expression of the valley-floor terroir. Le Clos Guillot is a hillside parcel on yellow tuffeau with clay and sand, producing a more mineral, black olive and smoky profile. La Croix Boissée, on a south-facing slope, is the estate's reference parcel: vines up to 40 years old on white tuffeau, 24 months in barrel, and a chalky tension that sets it apart from everything else in Chinon.

The entire estate works with indigenous yeasts, spontaneous fermentation and unfined, unfiltered bottling. Wines age in cement and old barrels according to parcel and style, following an essentially classical and non-interventionist approach. The range also includes a Chinon Blanc of remarkable minerality from Chenin Blanc, and an extraordinary red from ungrafted (franc de pied) Grolleau grown on a 0.4-hectare sandy parcel where phylloxera cannot survive. Kermit Lynch, the estate's long-standing US importer, describes them as "unquestionably one of Chinon's most outstanding producers." Le Clos Guillot 2018 earned 93 points from The Wine Advocate.