Sauvignon Blanc from two small parcels of old vines averaging out at around 65 years in age from the old Les Bois Lucas domaine that in a former life Noëlla used to manage for its previous owner, Junko Ara. As you'd expect from vines of this age the fruit has exceptional complexity and concentration resulting in a wine of impressive texture and multi-layered depth. Magnum bottling!
Reflecting the warm vintage, the 2022 has more power and attack than those that preceded it. The wine is a pale gold in the glass with all manner of rich aromas to take in. Brioche and frangipane alongside white flowers, candied lime peel - this is a wine that certainly does not scream 'Sauvignon Blanc'. The wine sees two full years' ageing in old oak barrels, imparting a gorgeous supple elegance, with passion fruit, salt crystals and white grapefruit hanging together in harmonious balance. So much purity, so much detail - Noëlla's exceptional top white never fails to bowl us over and is truly one-of-a-kind.
Since starting to make wine in 2001, Noëlla has trained with and worked alongside some of the great names of the Loire. A couple of years with Agnès and René Mosse in Anjou led to her becoming the vineyard manager at Les Bois Lucas after becoming friends with Junko Ara, then on to renting parcels of the feted Clos Roche Blanche estate in Touraine from Catherine Roussel and Didier Barrouillet. She now makes wine with fruit from a mixture of owned and rented parcels at her beautiful cellar carved out of the hillside in Thésée; a testament to her hard work and determination over the last 20 years. Noëlla chooses to work under the more general VDF denomination rather than AOC and her wines stand apart from the perceived notion of Touraine. “If it doesn’t smell like cat piss, you don’t get the appellation” she quips - but only half-jokingly. She refers to early picking and the prevalence of industrial yeasts used in the area to enhance supposedly typical flavours in the wine. Noella ferments with native yeasts and seeks a longer maturation period in old barrels than is usual, meaning her wines are released much later than many other producers nearby. This patience is rewarded with sublime depth and texture in the wine; her unique and varied expressions of Sauvignon Blanc range from the zippy to the tropical and often confound expectations of the grape. Her red wines, made with Gamay, Cabernet Franc and Côt are deep-fruited and velvet smooth.
