Jacky Blot

The highly-respected father and son team of Jacky and Jean-Philippe Blot owns and runs Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in Montlouis and Domaine de la Butte in Bourgueil. We have long-admired their wines, which are some of the Loire Valley’s most sensitively made, quality-driven examples. As we are familiar with in Burgundy, their vineyards are subdivided into small parcels, with each cuvée being a transparent expression of the specific site, vintage and grape variety.

We made our first shipments of Jacky`s delicious Montlouis wines with the 2017 vintage. He created Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in 1988. Planted 100% Chenin Blanc, the estate has grown steadily to its current 45 hectares that include two walled vineyards in Montlouis – the 3-hectare Clos Michet (bought in 2010) and the 12-hectare Clos Mosny – and just over 5 hectares planted on two exceptional sites in Vouvray. Jacky’s search for quality starts in the vineyards, where he only recently started to reintroduce organic fertilisers (after a self-imposed ban of any fertiliser for 15 years) and where all treatments are limited to a minimum in a desire to run the vines as naturally as possible while still producing healthy grapes. Combined with incredibly short pruning, this keeps yields down. Picking is always by hand in successive tris, with a further grape-by-grape manual sorting prior to pressing – a double selection that helps explain the concentration and purity of the estate`s wines. This attention to detail continues in the rock-hewn cellar where fermentations are in Bordeaux barriques (10% new per year) at the naturally cool temperatures of the cellar.

It was after 20 years working in Montlouis that Jacky took over the prime 16-hectare vineyard and cathedralesque cellars of Domaine de la Butte in Bourgueil. Running the south-facing slopes of the property very much the same exacting way as his Chenin vineyards, Jacky separates the plots by geological strata as they go up the hill, effectively creating his own Cru system as he picks, ferments and matures each cuvée according to its position on the slope and the age of the vines. The wines are gorgeous. big, intense, ageworthy wines with Cabernet Franc`s natural freshness balanced with the natural sucrosité that comes from picking at full maturity.