Bernard Baudry - Chinon Le Clos Guillot 2020

Add to Wish List

100% Cabernet Franc. Close to the town of Chinon, Clos Guillot is a hillside vineyard with S-SW exposure, near the top of the hill, with clay soils rich in yellow tuffeau (the soft local limestone) and iron. The vines were planted between 1993 and 2000 and are certified organic like all of the Baudry vineyards. The fruit is hand-harvested, destemmed and moved by gravity into cement vats. Fermentation with native yeasts and without sulfur or temperature control lasts around two weeks. The wine is then aged in 2-5-year-old barrique for 1 year, followed by 9 months in cement tank. It is bottled without filtration two years after the harvest.

Bernard Baudry Description

Bernard Baudry is unquestionably one of Chinon’s most outstanding producers. Not only does he have the talent to make delicious and consistent wines, vintage to vintage, but he is also fortunate to have vineyard land that showcases the varied soil types of the appellation. After completing his viticultural studies in Beaune, Bernard returned to the Loire Valley and purchased his first two hectares of land in Cravant-les-Coteaux, a village from which almost half of the production of A.O.C. Chinon is sourced. Over the years, the domaine has grown to 25 hectares and Bernard’s son, Matthieu, has joined the family domaine. The Baudrys are staunch traditionalists, and you would have a hard time finding a Chinon more classic than theirs.

A View from the Cellar: 93 Points

The Baudry family’s le Clos Guillot is not planted to some of their oldest vines, as this beautiful vineyard was planted between 1993 and 2000. The soils are deep clay and yellow tuffeau, with veins of iron. The wine is aged for one year in used barrels, ranging from two to five years of age, and then racked into cement tanks where it finishes its élevage with another year of aging. The 2020 le Clos Guillot comes in at an even thirteen percent octane and delivers a deep, pure and utterly refined bouquet of sweet dark berries, black cherries, tree bark, cigar wrapper, dark soil tones, tobacco smoke and a very discreet framing of cedary oak. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and very elegant in profile, with lovely soil signature and core of fruit, fine-grained tannins, excellent focus and grip and a long, seamlessly balanced and nascently complex finish. This is so cunningly balanced that it is relatively approachable today, but it is still quite primary in personality and to drink it now is to commit infanticide! I would not touch a bottle until it is ten years of age, just to allow it to truly blossom and deliver on all of its considerable promise.

Vinous: 91-93 Points

Hailing from the limestone-clay slopes on the outskirts of Chinon town, home to other famous vineyards like Clos de l'Olive and Chêne Vert, Le Clos Guillot 2020 offers a cloud of Cabernet Franc fruit with fine refreshing acidity. Savory, silken and seductive, the wine is flooded with a stream of acidity. It is a calm wine with a mass of chalky tannins that coat the palate reassuringly. The finish is long, quiet and scented with dark raspberries and spice. Rebecca Gibb, Vinous Media