2018 Thibaud Boudignon Savennieres La Vigne Cendree
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Tasting notes
The 2018 Savennières La Vigne Cendrée (cinder or ash vine) comes from three-year-old vines in a small, south-facing vineyard with a complex terroir changing from purple schist to granite to clayey silt. It was vinified naturally in Burgundian barrels and in foudre for 12 months, with no new oak, and bottled with 12% alcohol. The wine opens with intense but also pure, delicate, floral-scented fruit that is absolutely alluring in its slatey fragrancy and spiciness. On the palate, this medium-weight Chenin is pure, clear, fresh, light-footed, remarkably filigreed and finessed but also dense and intense, celebrating delicate and elegant Chenin fruit. What a beautiful drinking pleasure! This is a frisky, vital, energetic, minerally grippy and stimulatingly tensioned, sustainably salty and palate-tickling Savennières in the leaner, fresher, classical style. A pretty fabulous result for such a young vineyard in such a dramatically dry and hot vintage. Natural cork. Tasted in January 2022.
Critic scores
Tamlyn Currin, jancisrobinson.com
Stephan Reinhardt, Wine Advocate
More reviews and scores
From Thibauld Boudignon’s smallest parcel (0.5 ha) situated on purple schist, granite and clay soil in Savennieres. Organic. Biodynamic. Spontaneous fermentation, no malo, aged in used 350- and 500-litre barrels. Ginger, turmeric, honey, dried chamomile flowers… and that’s just lifting the glass to my nose for one small sniff. One sip of this wine, and I get the sense that I’m committing infanticide. It’s exquisitely structured. Angular, prismic, mathematical precision. A whetstone. A geometer. A wine that feels as if you could fold marble into origami. So laser sharp it feels as if it could cut light. Even the fruit is lithographic. Quince, summer hay barn, grapefruit peel, wet slate, fennel. Stunning. But I would wait, at least another three years, probably seven. (TC)