Description
Domaine de Bellivière, Jasnières “Les Rosiers”
Bellivière. Jasnières. 2020. Welcome to one of the most luxurious producer-place-vintage combinations in all of wine. Don’t worry, I’ll happily fill you in. Domaine de Bellivière is a treasured name for in-crowd sommeliers, with top publications describing them as (1) a “Grand Cru” property, (2) an “elite white wine practitioner” and (3) “one of the absolute reference points of the Loire Valley.” But the specific label on offer today elevates Bellivière’s talent and desirability into rarefied territory.
This is Chenin Blanc singularity from Jasnières, an obscure micro-appellation that churned out limited liquid gold in 2020. There’s a reason Bellivière calls today’s label the “vin emblématique du domaine.” It is their flagship bottling, the vinous emblem that epitomizes their biodynamic philosophy and prismatic yet sumptuous style. The catch, as you might guess, is that it’s extremely challenging for US consumers to acquire these wines in any capacity. Today’s your $45 opportunity. In closing, I feel compelled to include the following quote from a fellow Bellivière admirer in New York, who, after tasting today’s 2020, exclaimed: “It is beautifully off-dry, and just so damn good that I need to wipe tears away every time I taste it.” I’m right there with you, my friend.
Following an education in enology, Eric Nicolas and his wife and partner in the vines and cellar, Christine, ventured to the most obscure and northerly sub-regions of the Loire Valley: Jasnières and the neighboring Coteaux du Loir (no “e” on the end of this completely different river). The pair began Domaine de Bellivière in 1995 with a mere 3.5 hectares of fruit trees, grain, grazing lands for livestock, and a minimal amount of old-vine Chenin Blanc. Since day one, the Nicolas family has farmed their property organically, before gradually transitioning to biodynamics and eventually receiving an Ecocert certification in 2011. Today, the family is recognized as one of the most respected and uncompromising estates in the Loire Valley.
The dominant soil type at Bellivière is tuffeau (soft limestone) and flint, and the family’s deep limestone cellar is perfect for fermenting and storing wine without temperature control. There are no glycol-chilled tanks or electric pumps at Bellivière. Everything is cooled or heated by nature and all wine flows via gravity; this is a quintessentially natural operation!
“Les Rosiers” comes from select heirloom parcels in Jasnières—an AOC planted to just 75 total hectares—that are under 50 years of age; they consider these “young vines.” The biodynamic grapes are hand-harvested and meticulously sorted prior to de-stemming. They are then slowly pressed and fed into 500-liter French barrels, 25% new, to begin an ambient fermentation. After one year of fine-lees maturation in oak, the wine is bottled with minimal sulfur.
Because Eric Nicolas allows nature to control his wines, “Les Rosiers” is always the product of its vintage. In 2020, that meant 17 grams of residual sugar, putting this Chenin Blanc in sec-tendre (“off-dry”) territory. DO NOT mistake this for a sweet wine though. This is round, luscious, and packed with fantastically broad orchard fruits (apricot, quince) that shine due to a concentrated and snappy core of acidity. Few Chenin Blancs on the planet possess such unique character, depth, clarity, and opulence. I found it best to enjoy this over two evenings. Note that the ample residual sugar will allow this to evolve effortlessly—two decades is not out of the question!
