2020 Vouvray Moelleux Le Mont 1ere Trie
Buying options
Tasting notes
Full bottle 4,467 g. Certified Ecocert organic and Demeter biodynamic. 35-year-old Chenin vines on clay, flint and limestone. Hand-picked, sorted at picking and on the table. Six months traditional vinification with two months in French oak barrels. No malo, no lees ageing. Bottled April 2021. RS 91 g/l. 11,000 bottles. Smells like bay leaf in pineapple syrup. Spruce tips and pine cones dipped in icing sugar. Baked apples and lemon zest. Samphire salt and honey. Masses of complexity, so much so that it even reminds me of an aromatised wine – it is has exquisite detail of wild herbs, spices, fruits. Bitter herbs whorl into sweet spices, woodland into citrus, meadow into seashore. You could certainly drink this now, but it will richly reward cellaring. (TC)
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
The intensely yellow colored 2020 Vouvray Le Mont Moelleux Première Trie is highly concentrated and complex on the nose that exhibits candied lemon zest and chutney aromas along with calcareous and walnut notes. Sweet (really sweet!) yet refined and elegant on the palate, this is a full-bodied, rich and generous yet piquant and firmly structured, greatly tensioned and salty 1ère Trie with pineapple flavors on the finely tannic and energetic, very sustainable finish. The 2020 has great aging potential, and I would never serve it too young. When will it really start to show its best? I don't know, but you can’t go wrong to check the wine again after 10 years. Tasted as a final sample shortly before bottling in May 2021.
Boasting 91g/L residual sugar, Le Mont's 2020 Première Trie offers additional sweetness as well as lower acidity compared with the Haut-Lieu Première Trie. As a result, this cuvée inevitably has a sense of additional richness and weight on the palate. It's balanced, but the richness means it has had to trade in some of its energy and finesse. Offering orange peel, apricot jam, floral essences and apple sauce, it's satisfying and nourishing, but I'd like more direction and purpose on the finish. That said, this is still a well-crafted and carefully made wine.