Nicolas Joly - Savennières Coulée-de-Serrant 2018

Bettane & Desseauve

About the wine:

Full-bodied, with a maturity in keeping with the 2018 tempo, this freewheeling wine lets the terroir express itself. The dynamic finish is remarkable, with outstanding persistence.

About the domain :

La Coulée de Serrant is a wine-growing Eden, a place where life exults. Nicolas Joly, a pioneer of biodynamic viticulture, has made his wine a world-renowned brand. He can also count on the vision of his daughter Virginie to continue raising this estate to the top. Four hectares in Savennières and four hectares in Roche-Aux-Moines, a vineyard grazed by sheep, pecked by chickens, worked by hand, in symbiosis with nature. Observation, experimentation, model viticulture and a must-see estate.

Guide Hachette des vins

About the wine:

A beautiful golden yellow, this Coulée 2018 presents a nose of great delicacy, opening on floral, mineral (warm flint) and lemony notes. With aeration, aromas of fresh grass, menthol, puffed rice, quince and pear follow. A fresh, silky attack opens onto a supple, caressing, unctuous palate, with a fine minerality in support. The bitter orange note, so often present in this wine, stretches into a long finish. 888th harvest for Coulée de Serrant and a feeling of eternity.

About the domain :

This venerable 7-hectare vineyard, planted with old chenin vines clinging to schist slopes, was created by the Cistercians in 1130, and is one of the few monopoly appellations in France. Strengthened over the centuries by illustrious and crowned connoisseurs, its aura has taken on an international dimension since Nicolas Joly, the French "pope" of biodynamics, presides over its destiny, accompanied today by his daughter Virginie. The wine derives its original, unique character from grapes harvested at over-ripeness - or botrytized - in four or five passages. In the cellar, we don't use new wood to mask the terroir, but rather 500-l barrels. And as little intervention as possible.

Guide des Vins Gault & Millau

About the domain :

Nicolas Joly is now accompanied by his daughter Virginie. Without touching the father figure, we must admit that the wines have become more precise and delicate in recent years. La Coulée de Serrant is now at the height of the quality of its terroir. A schist terroir that gives the wine length, precision and subtle sparkle. The wines need time and, above all, aeration.

Robert Parker - Wine Advocate

About the wine:

Harvested in five passages and with higher-than-normal yields (24 hectoliters per hectare) and around 8% botrytis, the intensely yellow 2018 Clos de la Coulée de Serrant opens with a clear, refined and finely perfumed flinty bouquet, with aromatic ripe fruit aromas, fresh, elegant notes of herbs and shale and remarkable freshness - not only for the partly terribly hot 2018 vintage, but for this epic wine in general. Generous and broad on the elegant, seamless palate, with lush but concentrated fruit and a velvety texture from fine but firm tannins, this is an excellent, persistent Coulée de Serrant that's already approachable and ends with a long, salty as well as striking finish with stimulating bitters and fresh phenols. The 2018 is incredibly fine and finely salted.

RVF - La Revue du Vin de France / Guide des Meilleurs Vins de France

About the wine:

The extraordinary solar power of 2018 needs a few years in the cellar before revealing itself. Its strength gives a sensation of a warm torrent on the palate, then of a gentle river, drawn with a bewildering relief of flavors, percussive for some but with an uncommon personality. A white wine made for laying down, to be aired for a long time and served decanted.

About the domain :

The exceptional Coulée de Serrant vineyard stretches along the edge of a schistose cliff falling directly into the Loire, near Angers. The nature of the site and the quality of its exposure have enabled it to stand out from the crowd for centuries. Restored by Denise Joly in the 1960s, the estate was taken over by her son Nicolas. This brilliant agitator of ideas is a fundamentalist of biodynamic viticulture, which he has made his own at La Coulée de Serrant since 1981, when it was first certified. Nicolas Joly's daughter Virginie looks after the estate. While the latest vintages are endowed with a valiant intrinsic energy, aromatic deviations can spoil the purity that could be revealed by these mythical Loire terroirs.

Jancis Robinson