Domaine du Bel Air

Vintage: 2005
Producer: Domaine du Bel Air
Appellation: Bourgueil
Cuvée : Les Vingt Lieux Dits

On My Palate:

Laser beam red fruit. Red fruit compote. Tight and masculine. Dried rubber. Inky texture.

The Dregs:

Just north and across the Loire River from Chinon. The Gauthiers practice organic winemaking and were friends with the late Dider Dagueneau, the iconoclastic, hero winemaker/adventurer out of Sancerre.

A modern, rustic wine. four years old and hardly a breath of age. Definitely not built to please new world critics and therefore very unique and terroir/place driven. More reason to believe that the Loire is a secret, special, and evolving wine region that should be on every genuine wine aficionado’s radar.

Where:

Loire Valley wine tasting around the granite island in the kitchen at Pierre’s house in Encinitas.