Chateau de Coulaine Chinon Bonnaventure 2015
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Wine &
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Robert
Parker
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Wine & Spirits
Pour this and drink it, and the wine will be stinky but fresh, with notes of coffee, fresh meat and elevated acidity. Leave it open in a decanter and the stink is gone, the meaty tannins turned toward the richness of filet mignon, the wine’s tense, generous freshness giving it a lusty spark of deliciousness. This château’s vineyards on the plateau in Chinon have been farmed since the 1300s; since 1988, they’ve been under the direction of Etienne de Bonnaventure, whose team farms organically and ferments this spontaneously, in 6,000-liter vats, where it rests until bottling.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The dark colored 2015 Chinon Bonnaventure is a selection of the best plots with the most ripe and concentrated grapes of the estate bottlings. It is entirely fermented and aged in a 60-hectoliter oak vat and shows nice reduction but also pure and well-concentrated sour cherry fruit. On the palate, this is a concentrated, powerful and densely woven Cabernet with terroir expression and fine and crisp tannins. It is elegant and fresh but even more steely and firm than the estate Chinon. The finish is enormously salty, sharp and crisp, thanks to the tannins and the soil, which is in fact pretty deep loam here.
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Chateau de Coulaine is a family-owned estate rich in viticultural tradition which has been operating continuously since 1300. Since 1988, Etienne de Bonnaventure has assumed the viticulture and winemaking responsibilities and has grown the estate to its current 12 hectares, all situated on Chinon’s plateaux. Since 2014, his dynamic son Jean has joined the family domaine on a full time basis. Planted to 100% Cabernet Franc, vineyards are organically farmed, all grapes are hand-harvested and vinification follows a non-interventionalist path. Coulaine’s low yields (around 35 hl/ha) result in a deeply concentrated, savory and succulent expression of Cabernet Franc.
Cabernet Franc, a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, is the subtler and more delicate of the Cabernets. Today Cabernet Franc produces outstanding single varietal wines across the wine-producing world. Somm Secret—One of California's best-kept secrets is the Happy Canyon appellation of Santa Barbara. Here Cabernet Franc shines as a single varietal wine or in blends, expressing sumptuous fruit, savory aromas and polished tannins.
An important red wine appellation in the Touraine district of the Loire, Chinon produces fanciful, light-bodied reds from the Cabernet Franc grape. Chinon also makes charming rosés from the same grape as well as white wines from Chenin blanc. But the reds give the area its fame. Often scented with fresh herbs, black tea and violets, Chinon reds show a lovely combination of fruit and acidity. However, styles have become more concentrated and ripe in recent years from improvements in vineyard management. Modern methods include planting grass between vineyard rows, using higher trellises and deleafing to increase sunlight to berries and therefore improve ripening. Even still, red Chinon is intended to be a light to medium bodied, refreshing wine to be enjoyed in its youth.
Fuller-bodied Chinons come from vineyard sites on the clay and tuffeau limestone slopes, usually from the southern exposed slopes of Cravant-les-Coteaux, and the plateau above Beaumont. Lighter styled wines come from the sand and gravel vineyards near the Loire or Vienne Rivers with the most refined examples coming from the area around Panzoult