Domaine Patrick Baudouin 'Les Gâts' Anjou Chenin Blanc 2017

Patrick Baudouin took a circuitous route from city life to his final destination in the Côteaux du Layon. It was only in 1990, after twelve years of factory work and a stint selling books in Paris, that he decided to take over the estate his great-grandparents founded in the 1920s. Today, Patrick is shaking things up, where he is fighting to outlaw chaptalization for sweet wines. In collaboration with some of France's greatest wineries – he is working to promote a return to the founding values of the AOC system. The goal is to establish a trustworthy seal of origin andquality, rather than a mere guarantee of geographical origin with a bar set low enough for production requirements as to let pretty much everyone in.

60 year old Chenin vines grown on pure schist make this one of Patrick Baudouin's very best dry white wines. Expressive, mineral and very age worthy.

“Les Gâts” refers to fallow land, or terres gâtées. From the Celtic “Carn”, becoming “Garnes” or “Gâts”, signifying, essentially, a pile of stones. They believe that either a Celtic monument once stood here, or simply a heap of stones.

• Size: 1.1 ha (2.7 ac)
• Variety: Chenin Blanc
• Vine Age: Planted in 1947
• Terroir: Saint Aubin, south of the Layon river, facing north. Shallow talc shale and red clay soil.
• Viticulture: Certified organic (Ecocert, 2002)
• Vinification: Gently pressed, cold settled for 24 hours. Ambient yeast fermentation in used Burgundian barrels with no added SO2. Aged 10 months on the lees in used oak barrels. Full malolactic fermentation. Racked to tank to age a few months before bottled. SO2 added at racking and before bottling