2012 Château de la Bonneliere Touraine Ante Phylloxera Clos de Maulevrier

Community Tasting Notes (12) Avg Score: 92.5 points

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  2/2/2024 - AlphaMikeFoxtrot Likes this wine: 95 Points

  From 160+ year old vines that survived an attack of Phylloxera in the 1860s.
  
  Ripe wild strawberries, ripe red raspberries, tomato leaf, green tobacco, jalapeno pepper, fresh cracked black pepper on the nose. Medium + intensity of aromas. Smells elegant; then goes insane on the palate which adds fresh cut chives, ripe black cherries, dirt/earth, ripe dark plums and wet stone. What's higher than high intensity of flavors? This has it. Nice lingering finish - it almost lasts a minute.
  
  Medium body with medium + acid and medium lingering tannin. Developing; and going to get even better. Could easily age in the bottle for 10 more years. To me, this is at the top of the quality scale for Loire CF.

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  3/20/2023 - Julian Marshall Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Nothing much to add to what I wrote last July - this time I decanted, which speeded up the opening of the wine without detracting from its vibrancy. At the same level as the best Chinons.

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  10/31/2022 - jviz wrote: 90 Points

  This was pretty green and weedy. In some ways, a quintessential loire cabernet franc. It had a lovely perfume, some moderate volatility, but kind of thin in body, surprising for the vintage and the vine age. It's characterful and my table mates loved it, but I was looking for an extra gear that never came.

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  7/3/2022 - Julian Marshall Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Quite reticent at first, the nose needed time to unfurl, with spring flowers, lots of dark raspberry, a touch of blueberry, some cranberry and on the finish, dried loam.
  Likewise, it wasn't very expressive at first on the palate either, apart from the crunchy red fruit I expected, but it took off after a couple of hours, showing very deep flavours of loganberries, red cherry, wild strawberry, then the redcurrant and cranberry I had been expecting. Very young and fresh still, the finish was a little too sappy, but it just needs time. What I found interesting was that unlike the 2007, this does actually resemble a Chinon - there's an unmistakeable chalkiness to the finish which develops after a while.
  
  Overall, very impressive, with great potential - there's a seamless, effortless charm to this, but also something brooding below the surface, some as yet unresolved power which will ensure it ages beautifully.

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  5/11/2020 - David_K wrote: 94 Points

  Such finesse! What a gorgeous wine. So pure, red-fruited and lithe. Absolutely seamless and drinking very well now, but seems like it has a long plateau ahead of it.

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View all 12 Community Tasting Notes

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