2019 Quarts

Ivan Massonnat’s Belargus has arrived on the Anjou scene with a bang. A newcomer to the Loire Valley, Belargus is making waves with his modern approach to wine marketing and communication and his no-expense-spared, unapologetic interpretation of the Anjou terroir. He’s taken on the estate formerly owned by Jo Pithon, renamed it, and now has a collection of stellar Chenin vineyards from around the area known as Anjou Noir, a land of schist, including ten hectares across the Quarts de Chaume and Chaume Grand Crus. The vines are farmed biodynamically and hand-harvested over several picks before the fruit is whole bunch pressed and allowed to ferment naturally in 400-liter oak barrels. The wines are mainly dry, but as nature permits, botrytized sweet wines are also created, encouraged by the morning mists off the Layon, a tributary of the Loire River.

In 2018, some of the whites were a touch oaky due to new barrels, and while oak continues to play an important part in these wines, improved integration is evident. There’s no doubting the ambition here, but with only three vintages to go on, you have to be careful that you don’t declare it the next big thing just in case it’s the Emperor’s New Clothes, but the historic sites and the high quality of the wines seems to suggest this is the real deal. When it comes to current vintages, look to drink the 2020s before the 2019s. The 2019s are firm and powerful (no malolactic conversion occurred in 2019), whereas the 2020s are a lot more open. As a result, the domaine has decided to release the 2020s before the 2019s as a result.