Olga Raffault Les Picasses 2012
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From a good vintage (picked pretty late on October 15th), the dark purple colored 2012 Chinon Les Picasses has a perfectly ripe and concentrated bouquet, displaying floral aromas along with concentrated and elegant fruit aromas. Smooth, round and elegant on the palate, this is a generous, fresh and well-structured Chinon with a very intense and complex finish that is as mineral fresh as it is perfectly round and ripe. This is a great and vital Les Picasses. A grand vin with enormous aging potential. Lots of licorice on the finish. Tasted at the domain in May 2018.
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This domaine is now run by Sylvie and Eric de la Vigerie (Sylvie is Olga Raffault’s granddaughter). For Les Picasses, they farm a hillside above the river, where 50-year-old vines grow on alluvial clay over chalky limestone. Aged in large-format oak, then in bottle prior to its relatively late release, this wine’s structure has melded with its red fruit, creating a delicious young cabernet franc of grace and power, lasting on the sophisticated richness of cigar smoke. Built to age, this is also ready to decant for country pâté or savory offal dishes.
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The estate has terrific plots of land in the Savigny-en-Véron district hard by the Vienne riverbanks. The ‘les Picasses’ vineyard stands out from the rest: old vines of 50-ish years on a fairly steep slope from the riverbank that is alluvial clay with a chalk limestone base. The fruit is particularly expressive of dark fruits of cassis and dark cherries with a terrific mineral content and good acidity for structure.
The winemaking is most traditional. The grapes are, of course, handpicked and fermented in stainless-steel. The wines are then aged in larger, neutral oak and sometimes chestnut - a traditional barrel wood in the region
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