Domaine François Chidaine Montlouis Les Bournais Franc de Pied 2023

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.