2022 Bernard Baudry Les Granges Chinon, Loire Valley

Organic. 100% Cabernet Franc. Les Granges is the Baudry family’s vin de bistro—a delicious, entry-level Cabernet Franc designed for early drinking. It comes mostly from the estate’s younger vines, planted between 1985 and 1988 in the alluvial gravel soils of the terraces beside the river Vienne. The fruit is picked by hand and coolly ferments for two weeks in cement tanks, before being raised for seven to 10 months, also in cement.
 
The new vintage is bright and perfumed, packed with succulent cherry fruit and finishing with crunchy freshness alongside a lick of mineral and dried chilli—a fine release, and just what you want from this type of agile, juicy Cabernet Franc. As Chinon’s most famous son, François Rabelais, once wrote: “Drink always before the thirst, and it will never come upon you."