Nicolas Joly at Château de la Roche aux Moines.

This was my second meeting with Nicolas Joly, the first being the Return to Terroir tasting in Los Angeles in 2006. Joly met us having just come in from the harvest and delivered, as is his reputation, an animated and highly informative lecture on biodynamics. We then rapidly traveled through the cellar, where he said "it's not much to look at," and then we hurried out the back door to set foot in la Roche aux Moines. Joly's enthusiasm might have been due to the picking that was taking place on the day of our visit, but I left with the feeling that this is just Joly being himself. Walking through Nicolas Joly's portion of la Roche aux Moines was really a pleasure, and Coulée de Serrant is nothing short of inspiring. The place simply surges with energy.

The charming Florent Baumard of Domaine des Baumard.

Our morning began with a frustrating drive through the Savennières appellation, frustrating because we spent a good hour or so trying to find Domaine des Baumards famous butterfly-shaped Clos du Papillon vineyard. Our pent up anxiety quickly disappeared upon meeting Florent Baumard at his domaine in Rochefort-sur-Loire. Chris Kissack describes Florent as a "delight to taste with" and he definitely is. We felt somewhat vindicated in our frustration after he admitted to us that finding the Clos du Papillon is pretty much "impossible" and opening nearly the entire portfolio for our tasting.

Château Pierre-Bise in Beaulieu-sur-Layon.

I was looking forward to one of Claude Papin's famous diatribes on terroir, complete with the diagram drawing described in Andrew Jefford's The New France but Papin was understandably in the vineyards, which is always a risk one takes when visiting producers during harvest. The charming and equally authoritative Madame Chevalier-Papin led us through a revealing tasting, clearly demonstrating that botrytis has an important role to play in the complexity and character in both sweet and dry Chenin.