François Chidaine is revered for his pristine Chenin Blancs from Montlouis and Vouvray. For a fraction of the price of those wines, here is a touch of Chidaine magic in the form of a Sauvignon cropped from vines in Chissay-en-Touraine and Saint-Julien-de-Chédon. These vineyards lie in the heart of the Touraine appellation, less than 10km upstream from Montlouis, and the viticulture is strictly organic and biodynamic. Alongside his own vineyards, Chidaine now also sources fruit from his grower son-in-law, Jean-Baptiste Bonnigal, in Limeray.

Fermented with a high degree of solids before maturation on lees—a little barrel-aged fruit adds complexity—you'll find engaging zesty citrus character here, along with a delicious touch of white flower and peach skin. As always with Chidaine, you get terroir first and variety second. 

It’s so good to see this great-value wine become a regular starter in the Chidaine portfolio. This label was first created in 2021, when, having lost 60% of his yields, François reached out to his contacts to secure small parcels of Chenin Blanc from across Touraine. The ‘Chenin from here’ ends up roughly a 50/50 blend of estate and purchased fruit and includes grapes from many of the domaine’s exceptional parcels across Vouvray and Montlouis. Made in the same way as his estate cuvées, the resulting wine is popping with Chidaine magic. In short, it’s a deliciously fleshy, salty, mineral-rich wine with a silky core oozing texture and snaking stone-fruited length. All class.

Chidaine began working with one of the greatest and most storied Vouvray vineyards in 2002 and immediately began restoring the health of Clos Baudoin’s soil and converting it to biodynamics. You only need to stand in the vineyard to know you are in a great site. Sitting on the crest of a hill high over the surrounding countryside, it is a strangely tranquil place. It's 2.7 hectares in size with an average vine age of over 70 years. The soils are clay and chalk, with a deep tuffeau (local limestone) subsoil.

Compared to the relative approachability of this grower’s Les Argiles cuvée, this wine is a deep, tightly coiled and densely compact Vouvray. Exuding intensity and power, you immediately realise you’re tasting a wine from a profound terroir.  Raised in 10+-year-old demi-muids, it opens with citrus peel and white peach flecked by lime blossom and chalky mineral substance. The palate is predictably pure and focused, purring with glinting, stone-fruited intensity underscored by pulpy citrus and notes of red peppercorn and pollen. Time will tell us just how great this Vouvray will be—for now, it’s a vibrant and compact Chenin bursting with potential. And with a light grip on the finish, it’s made for food.

Settled on a limestone plateau above the Loire, the chalky soils of Les Bournais would not be out of place on Vouvray’s Première Côte (home to Clos du Bourg and Le Mont). Unlike most of Montlouis—which is on clay and flint—this four-hectare vineyard is on a pocket of clay and Bournais limestone, from which it takes its name. Planted in 1998, the vines gently follow the contours of the land right to the edge of a chalky precipice. The roots have just 35 centimetres of clay to burrow through before hitting the limestone bedrock, perhaps one reason we always see a distinctive smokiness in the aromas of these wines.

Chidaine’s Franc de Pied derives from a tiny parcel (0.2 hectares close to the cliff’s edge) of ungrafted vines in this vineyard, planted at the same time as the vines that make up the ‘standard’ cuvée. This wine is fascinating to taste alongside its sister wine from grafted vines. It typically offers more depth, more finesse and length. It is also more tightly wound, more mineral and ethereal.

Chidaine often also finds an alluring bitters-like character in the wine, which is not apparent in the regular Les Bournais cuvée. Unlike the classic bottling, the Franc de Pied is raised in a second-fill 1200-litre Taransaud foudre. We haven’t tasted the new vintage as we have so few bottles. Form suggests a reminder of what phylloxera took away from France’s wine culture; a ‘grand cru’ Loire Chenin of exceptional intensity and length of flavour, humming with energy and chalky, limestone cut.

Settled on a limestone plateau above the Loire, the chalky soils of Les Bournais would not be out of place on Vouvray’s Première Côte (home to Clos du Bourg and Le Mont). Unlike most of Montlouis—which is on clay and flint—this four-hectare vineyard is on a pocket of clay and Bournais limestone, from which it takes its name. Planted in 1998, the vines gently follow the contours of the land, right to the edge of a chalky precipice. The roots have just 35 centimetres of clay soils to burrow through before hitting the limestone bedrock, perhaps one reason we always see a distinctive smokiness in the aromas of these wines.

When tasted alongside the Clos du Breuil and Les Choisilles cuvées, this is clearly an altogether more ‘Vouvrillon’ expression of Montlouis, with a powdery, chalky structure that reflects its soils and location. Chidaine now raises this wine in a single 1,000-litre untoasted oval made specifically for this wine. It’s hard to say what effect this will have on its evolution, but one thing is for sure: the new vintage is a belter. Like a proud parent, François Chidaine always has a smile in his face when he pours this wine!

It’s an ultra-intense dry Chenin; very complex with all kinds of tangy fruit and nuances of white peach, juicy pineapple, citrus peel, blossom, ginger and vibrant mineral earthiness (a signature of all Chidaine wines) lurking underneath all the puppy fat. The balance is impeccable, as is the lip-smacking chalky finish.

This domaine has several cuvées that often fall into what would traditionally be called demi-sec territory. However, Chidaine prefers to call these wines tendre, or ‘gently dry’. This is because the level of sweetness can fluctuate widely depending on the vintage. Like the greats of the Mosel, these are wines where the sugar/acid balance is more important than residual sugar levels. They are powered by ripeness rather than sweetness, and always finish tangy and fresh.

The three-hectare Clos Habert sits just above the Clos du Breuil, on a plateau where the silex (flint) gives way to broken chalk and clay. It’s home to 60-year-old guyot and bush-trained vines with very low yields (circa 30 hl/ha) that are harvested by hand in passes. The 2020 was raised in large format barrel.

It’s another powerful release for this great wine. Finishing with roughly 13 g/L residual, it's a more citrusy wine than the Tuffeaux bottling and just as gorgeous. Just off-dry in feel, it’s an elegant riot of crystalline quince, Poire William and orange peel cut with a lovely balancing seam of ripe acidity before the long, snaking finish. Relish this with sweet-and-sour dishes or bring out the best Comté you can get your hands on.

Manuela Chidaine described 2016 as a “vintage from hell”. Stemming from the severe frost that blanketed the central Loire on 27th April, this domaine lost an astonishing 90% of its forthcoming crop. By harvest time, this translated to an average yield of 5 hl/ha. As such, the domaine could only realise four cuvées from their Montlouis/Vouvray vineyards. This delicious moelleux is one wine that made the cut.

The wine is a blend of strictly sorted, late-harvested and botrytised grapes culled from parcels in Montlouis and Vouvray (hence the Vin de France appellation). It was raised for 11 months in used 600-litre barrels and bottled unfiltered. Ending up with just 35 g/L residual sugar, it is a glorious riot of quince, citrus oils and roasted pineapple bound by scintillating freshness and fabulous length of flavour. There’s also some serious complexity on the crunchy finish by way of grapefruit, smoke and spice nuances. It’s a wine to excite a top Mosel producer!

Chidaine does not release a Moelleux from his Vouvray vineyards every year—the balance has to be just so—and so you can be sure that when he does it is worth seeking out. It's drawn from the clay-limestone vineyards (of Le Bouchet, L’Espagnole, L’Homme, La Chatterie et al.) and made in the same fashion as Les Tuffeaux. As we have seen chez Huet, 2018 was a stunning year for sweeter styles of Chenin Blanc and here the song remains the same.

The residual finished in the 20 to 30 g/L range, yet you wouldn’t pick it; the weightlessness and energy here make the wine seem like a ripe and luscious, yet almost-dry white. It’s an utterly gorgeous release that echoes the feather-light balance and thrilling delicacy of a great German Riesling. A light whose name is splendour. 

As with all of Chidaine's wines from Vouvray (since 2014), it is labelled as a Vin de France, for the same reason as Les Argiles (this wine is 100% from Vouvray but it was fermented and aged across the river in Montlouis).

Chidaine's rare vins liquoreux are made exclusively from botrytised fruit, making them the richest and sweetest wines in the portfolio. Unlike in Vouvray, the conditions required to grow this rare style of Montlouis come around once in a blue moon. The last time we shipped this cuvée was from 2009, when it was called Les Lys. It is a multi-site blend from three vineyards that are picked over successive passes. It fermented with native yeasts and matured in demi-muid. The 2020 stopped fermenting with just over 100 g/L residual sugar, yet it remains a vibrant and wonderfully balanced wine. When called on, Chidaine is a master of this style; in short, it is a remarkably delicious, layered and complex wine, as the review below makes clear.

If the Domaine’s Montlouis vin liquoreux is a rare bird, its counterpart from Vouvray is rarer still. As fans of Domaine Huet will attest, 2009 was a sensational year in the Loire for our growers’ sweet styles, and the apple has not fallen far from the tree here. Crafted from hand-selected botrytised grapes from L’Espagnole and L’Homme, this incredible and complex wine fermented at snail's pace for well over a year (I can’t remember exactly) until it finished with 130 g/L of residual sugar.

Finally released after 13 years in Chidaine’s cellar, it’s oozing brightness and energy. A kaleidoscope of flavours and textures unfolds in the glass with roasted peach drizzled with honey, candied apricot and a procession of invigorating citrus and spice, all underscored by botrytis grip and herbal freshness. Tinged with truffle and saffron complexity, the finish is endless.