Description
Sansonniere La Lune Blanc 2020
Varietal: Chenin Blanc
ONE PER CUSTOMER!
Mark Angeli, a chemistry student turned stonemason who embraced viticulture as a form of environmental protection, is a firm believer in “biodynamie” and in the wines that can be made from this method of culture. He bought his estate in 1990, with seven hectares of
Anjou, Coteaux-du-Layon and Bonnezeaux. These last two appellations, planted by law entirely in Chenin blanc, are supposed to yield richly sweet moëlleux or liquoreux wines every year. The rules do not admit any demi-sec or sec wine, as it does in Vouvray and
Montlouis. Anything below a moëlleux loses the names Coteaux-du-Layon or Bonnezeaux, has to be entirely sec and becomes an Anjou blanc, the lowliest of categories in the area and the least remunerative too. So, every year early in the picking season, winemakers have to gamble that the weather in September and October is going to concentrate the grapes’ sugar through noble rot or passerillage, and that they’ll be able to make sweet wines.
After years of making celebrated Bonnezeaux, Angéli decided several vintages ago to reverse course, and make great dry (or semi-dry) wines from most of his plots, even in
Bonnezeaux. Thus was created his blanc “La Lune”, which has the deep gold color of a sweet Chenin, and notes of dried, candied fruit on the nose; the mouth is rich, despite its minerality and lively acidity; the wine is totally dry, but with the weight and flavors of a moëlleux: in all, quite an astonishing feat of vine growing and winemaking.
