Philippe Foreau Domaine du Clos Naudin Vouvray Sec, Loire, France

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Foreau’s 2008 Vouvray Sec is adamantly dry at 2 grams residual sugar, an impression accentuated by bright acidity and a firm sense of mineral underpinnings. The musky, animal, faintly truffly aspect of the vintage is on display here (but Foreau says 2008 is even stronger in acidity for him than was 1996, and in other respects favors comparison with 2001) as well as an almost radish-like sharpness and fresh lime intensity of a positively vibratory finish. Amazingly – even to Foreau in retrospect – this harbors the same 13.6% alcohol as his 2009 sec, but what a difference in personality! It needs a couple of years in the cellar and should be fascinating to follow for at least a dozen. Considering that few white wine growers anywhere can boast the track record of Philippe Foreau, his Vouvrays are priced to continue offering wonderful value. This becomes especially (at times depressingly) evident when one compares the much higher prices asked for Chenin from certain appellations further West that have traditionally been treated as superior according to the still rather hide-bound French pecking order, even when they deliver questionable or even dismal results. Buy these wines now, before the market for Loire wine at last becomes a meritocracy! Foreau thinks the high flint content in his sites helped convey minerality even in a vintage as rich (to the point where rendering balanced sec was tricky) as is 2009, but as in other very warm vintages of the past two decades the excitement chez Foreau is at the top end of the must weight spectrum. “I have never in my career had such acidity with this degree of richness,” opines Foreau of his two top 2009s. Alluding to 2008’s record-breaking rains and consequent flooding in certain sectors of Vouvray – which for a critical while rendered it impossible to get into one’s vineyards to treat the vines, other than on foot and with tanks strapped to one’s back – Foreau remarked matter-of-factly: “this vintage stared out badly, but finished well, while 2007 started out well and finished badly” – and just how well 2008 was capable of finishing, there is no better place to witness than in Foreau’s cellar. Foreau opines that working the lees – fashionable anyway now with Loire Chenin and a younger generation – was a mistake in 2008 as it ameliorated the acidity, if at all, at the expense of clarity and focus.Importer: Rosenthal Wine Merchant, Pine Plains, NY; tel. (800) 910-1990