France, Loire

Claude Papin has been joined running this famed estate by his son Rene and the team seem to be seamlessly continuing the great work at the Château de Pierre Bise that has rightfully built their great reputation. They like to focus on getting the ripest and most botrytised grapes possible by harvesting non-stop for two months, fri the sweet wines only taking the rot-affected grapes on each of several passes down each row of vines. For the dry wines they are looking for fully mature polyphenols and thin mature skins to add complexity and a pure intensity. The Labour intensive process continue and also in the winery, in prolonging the fermentations for as long as possible to achieve the greatest purity and freshness of expression in the wines. (If you ask Claude he will explain that it is all to do with the correct polymerisation of the polyphenols). In doing this he completely avoids the wet-sheep smell that dogs many Chenin wines in the Loire, and produces a range of wines from different terroirs which are among the great sweet wines of the world at some of the lowest prices for this style.