WTN: 2005 François Cazin Cour-Cheverny Loire Valley France. 12% alcohol; 100% Romorantin. Chambers Street Wines, $14.49. Lyle/Asimov bottle.
Golden yellow color, clear hue, Complex aromas of lemons, chalk, fruit, honey and minerals; complex tastes of fruit, white clover honey, minerals, chalk and a light spiciness, light mouth feel, firm and lively acidiyt, long long finish, one of the longest finishes I can remember in a white wine without a lot of sugar. This is a great hot weather wine, and I can imagine it working well with salmon. It worked well with a Romaine/apple/blue berry salad with a hot out of the pot egg salad. ... Over time, the honey notes started to predominate, but it never became too sweet, and I started to follow the progression of the clover honey from the very first nectar, to the fuller, richer honey that comes in July. Remarkable. 4*.
Notes: Louis/Dressner: "Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny from François Cazin. Cheverny is one of the most recent new appellations in the Loire Valley (1991). The area, south of the Loire and abutting the marshy region of Sologne (the best hunting grounds in France), has produced wines since at least the 6th century. The soils consist of various combinations of clay, limestone and silica. Many varietals are planted: Pinot Noir, Gamay, Cabernet and Côt for red wines, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Chenin and Menu Pineau for the whites. By legislation, a Cheverny wine has to be a blend of varietals, and François Cazin’s white is 70% Sauvignon Blanc and 30% Chardonnay.
Cazin tends vines of considerable age and the resulting yields are well below average in any given year. His Cheverny is fresh and floral, with appley-texture and crisp acidity. The flavors are sleek and precise. Since 1997, the wine has been bottled unfiltered by gravity. His wines have consistently been the top pick of the vintage at the annual Loire Valley wine show in Angers.
François Cazin. Cazin also makes a cuvée of Cour-Cheverny, exclusively from the ancient local grape Romorantin. This varietal, with its high acidity and minerality, is angular and rough in mediocre vintages. But when it achieves high ripeness, the wine has astonishing grapey, apricot and roasted nuts flavors, kept fresh and lively by good acidity. In very ripe vintages, when the grapes undergo passerillage or noble rot, Cazin vinifies some of his Romorantin in demi-sec, and calls it Cour-Cheverny Cuvée Renaissance. http://www.louisdressner.com/Cazin/?15
Robin Garr, WLP: Romorantin = "Roe-moe-rahn-taN" According to legend, the Romorantin grape was introduced to the Loire by the 15th century French King François I, who hailed from the region. Its vineyard plantings have diminished over the years, giving way to the more commercially sought-after Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc; but it remains dominant in Cour-Cheverny, a tiny sub-appellation of Cheverny in the Touraine region, on the south side of the Loire east of the city of Tours. The greater Cheverny appellation is approved for a variety of grapes, adding the red grapes Gamay, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc and the white Chardonnay to the Sauvignon and Chenin; Cheverny whites by regulation can't be 100 percent varietal wines but must be blends.
But in Cour-Cheverny, Romorantin remains king, and I hope it lives long and prospers. While some of the world's more obscure grapes may fairly earn their lowly status through lackluster quality or viticultural or commercial faults, Romorantin-based Cour-Cheverny - virtually all of it grown and made by a single producer, François Cazin - deserves all the respect we can give it. It makes a vibrantly acidic white wine of intense minerality and fruit, and in its late-harvested, off-dry rendition - which Cazin labels "Cuvee Renaissance" - it remarkably combines richness and steel, a vivid real-world example of the old analogy about the iron fist in the velvet glove.