2023 Bernard Baudry Les Granges Chinon, Loire Valley

The 2023 Les Granges is not complicated but well made, offering pleasure and layers of flavor. This is a little reductive in its youth, hiding the primary fruit at this time, but there's also a smoky note here with grilled padrón peppers. Despite modest alcohol levels, there's sufficient richness with bright line and length.""The 2023 Les Granges is not complicated but well made, offering pleasure and layers of flavor. This is a little reductive in its youth, hiding the primary fruit at this time, but there's also a smoky note here with grilled padrón peppers. Despite modest alcohol levels, there's sufficient richness with bright line and length.

89 points Rebecca Gibb MW vinous.com

Bernard Baudry Les Granges Chinon is a beautiful, organic expression of Cabernet Franc from one of the Loire Valley’s most respected family estates, grown on the gravel and sandy soils that line the Vienne River just outside the historic town of Chinon. These alluvial terraces warm quickly in spring and drain freely, giving vines low vigour and naturally balanced fruit that ripens with wonderful aromatic purity. Bernard Baudry has been a pioneer of organic viticulture in Chinon for decades, working his vineyards without synthetic chemicals and encouraging deep root systems and healthy living soils. This approach gives Les Granges its vibrant energy and clarity, allowing the terroir to shine through rather than being masked by winemaking.

In the glass the wine shows a bright, translucent ruby colour, with lifted aromas of wild strawberry, red cherry, raspberry, violet and a subtle leafy note that is classic Chinon. The palate is fresh, silky and full of life, delivering crunchy red fruits, gentle spice and fine, powdery tannins that make it both easy to drink and quietly complex. There is a lovely stony, savoury undertone from the river gravel that adds depth and length to the finish. It is a perfect match for charcuterie, roast chicken, pork, mushroom dishes and tomato based food, and it also has the structure to age for five to eight years, gaining more earthy, tobacco and herbal complexity as it matures.