Philippe Foreau, Domaine du Clos Naudin, Vouvray Sec

There are great producers in Vouvray, and then there are Huet and Foreau. For generations, these two neighboring estates have occupied a place of their own at the summit of the appellation, producing Chenin Blanc with a combination of longevity, complexity and individuality that very few white wines anywhere can equal. The Foreau story at Clos Naudin began with Armand Foreau in the early twentieth century; remarkably, he excavated the estate's extraordinary limestone cellar by hand over the course of decades, while also becoming one of the unusually early Vouvray growers to estate-bottle his wines. The histories of Vouvray's two most celebrated domaines even became intertwined when part of the Foreau vineyard holdings passed through inheritance to Armand's daughter, who married Gaston Huet. Philippe Foreau assumed control in 1983, his son Vincent joined him in 2007, and the family has maintained an almost fanatical commitment to the traditional methods that made these wines famous. Each new vintage is greeted with enormous critical enthusiasm, allocations disappear into private cellars across the world, and mature bottles explain the devotion better than any review ever could. Twenty, thirty, forty years is hardly an absurd proposition for great Foreau; the best bottles seem almost constitutionally incapable of growing old.

Clos Naudin today encompasses roughly twelve hectares, and understanding its geology goes a long way toward understanding the wine. The dominant soils are the local perruches: dense clay filled with flint, lying over Vouvray's immense substratum of soft limestone tuffeau. Clay provides water retention and substance, the flint-heavy surface soils are associated with the smoky, stony austerity that characterizes these wines in youth, and the porous limestone beneath provides both drainage and a deep reservoir of moisture. Foreau does not divide this geology into a parade of named vineyard bottlings. Instead, fruit from across the domaine can contribute to Sec, Demi-Sec or Moelleux, with the composition of the harvest determining the wine rather than a predetermined hierarchy of parcels. This is one of the intellectual pleasures of Clos Naudin: each bottling is less a portrait of a single vineyard than an interpretation of what Vouvray and Chenin Blanc were capable of producing in that particular year.

That philosophy becomes especially important in 2022. The growing season was exceptionally hot and dry, sufficiently so that Philippe and Vincent Foreau have discussed periods of hydric stress in which maturation temporarily slowed. Yet their clay-rich perruches soils are exceptionally useful under precisely those circumstances, holding moisture beneath the surface and helping old, established vines continue functioning through drought. Harvesting by hand is another crucial detail here. Chenin ripens notoriously unevenly—even neighboring bunches, and sometimes berries within a bunch, can occupy noticeably different stages of maturity—and the Foreaus make successive decisions about what to pick according to ripeness and condition. In 2022, the warmth supplied extraordinary concentration and physiological maturity, while Chenin's naturally formidable acidity preserved tension. The result is not simply a richer version of Vouvray Sec; it is a particularly complete one, in which the flesh and extract of a solar vintage are pinned firmly in place by acidity and mineral structure.

The cellar work is equally traditional and deliberately unobtrusive. Fermentation occurs spontaneously with indigenous yeasts, historically in old barrels, and the wood is emphatically a vessel rather than a flavoring agent. The domaine purchases only a tiny number of replacement barrels each year, so overt new-oak character is essentially absent. Foreau's Sec is also genuinely dry—typically carrying only a few grams of residual sugar—but Chenin's extract, ripe fruit and naturally waxy texture can create a sensation of richness considerably greater than the analytical sugar would suggest. This is one reason the wines age so fascinatingly. In youth, acidity, extract, fruit and mineral character can seem almost architectural in their separation; with time they slowly fuse together. Apple and citrus become quince, chamomile, beeswax and lanolin; the flinty severity softens toward smoke, chalk and toasted nuts; yet the underlying acidity remains. Ten or fifteen years is enough to witness a transformation, but well-stored bottles from great vintages can continue evolving for decades beyond that.

Serve the 2022 Foreau Vouvray Sec around 54°F in a generous white-wine stem and give it plenty of air; there is no reason to serve a wine this substantial from a narrow glass or refrigerator-cold. The color is luminous pale gold with youthful green reflections. The nose begins with quince, yellow apple, pear, lemon peel and white peach, then gradually opens toward acacia, chamomile, almond, beeswax, crushed flint and that faintly smoky mineral quality that is so evocative of serious Vouvray. On the palate, 2022 gives the wine unusual breadth and concentration—a dense, almost waxy core of orchard fruit—before Chenin's formidable acidity takes control, drawing everything toward a remarkably long, chalky, saline finish. And here I would happily abandon Loire tradition and serve stuffed pasta with walnut pesto. No, it is not remotely a traditional Vouvray pairing. It is, however, a perfect one. The pasta and filling meet the wine's breadth, while its acidity slices through the richness of walnuts, olive oil and cheese; more importantly, the earthy bitterness of walnut seems to unlock Chenin's flavors of quince, almond, beeswax, flint and smoke. Finish the pasta with good Parmigiano and perhaps a little sage, and this becomes one of those wonderful pairings that sounds slightly strange until the first bite and sip—at which point it seems completely inevitable.