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The 2020 Vintage from Philippe & Vincent Foreau: Equilibrium Amidst Extreme Conditions

The 2020 Vintage from Philippe & Vincent Foreau: Equilibrium Amidst Extreme Conditions

Foreau’s characterful hand-hewn cave harbors many treasures.

Our annual visits with the Foreau family in Vouvray have developed a certain reassuring rhythm over the many years of our partnership. We convene in the house, toasting with the latest disgorgement of their peerless Brut (which routinely spends at least five years on its lees). Then, after exchanging pleasantries, we cross their quiet street and descend to their labyrinthine cellar, dug by hand out of the zone’s classic tuffeau limestone during Philippe’s grandfather’s time. Its raw walls, lit sparingly by bare bulbs hung at regular intervals, speak viscerally of the local terroir. Barriques blackened and weathered by time—the Foreaus utilize them for 20 or 30 years—flank the cave’s tunnels, and one marvels that such awe-inspiring wines are birthed in such humble vessels. The entire operation, in fact, is a powerful reminder that technology is no prerequisite for great wine.

Deeper into the heart of the cave lies the stockage—a jaw-dropping collection of the many vintages that comprise the family’s winegrowing history. Here, surrounded by bottles (many of which are older than anyone present), is where we get down to the business of tasting. Philippe and his son Vincent—tailored exactingly from the family cloth—walk us through a procession of wines, not just from the vintages currently for sale, but reaching far into the past. (We have enjoyed, in the past several years, 1989s, 1978s, and even the emotionally charged 1945—a wine the family never commercialized, instead retaining the entire production from the vintage’s miserly five-hectoliters-per-hectare yield.) Philippe, a legendary gourmand, offers precise tasting notes and suggests hyper-specific food pairings for each bottle they present.

Because the Foreaus have always made their wines in the same low-key way—natural fermentation and aging in thoroughly used barriques, blocked malolactic fermentation, never any chaptalization—there is a clear thread connecting current vintages to past versions. Notably, rather than crafting their lineup to accommodate perceived market demand, Philippe and Vincent allow the character of the growing season to dictate which wines they produce from a given harvest.

The incoming 2020 vintage—hot and sunny even within the context of climate change—yielded a small quantity of Vouvray Sec, no Demi-Sec at all, a Moelleux Reserve (but no regular Moelleux), and the sublime Moelleux Reserve “Goutte d’Or”—a mindboggling nectar produced only a few times in the domaine’s history. Philippe remarked that Demi-Sec is becoming ever more difficult to produce in today’s sweltering climate; elevated temperatures at harvest cause ripeness levels to skyrocket and acidity levels to plummet, and that just-so point of equilibrium required by great Demi-Sec is increasingly elusive. Exceedingly dry conditions in 2020 made for low yields: just 33 hectoliters per hectare for the Vouvray Sec, and far less, of course, for the sweet wines. Stylistically speaking, 2020’s solar generosity plays well into the domaine’s overarching preference for acidity and precision, and the bottled wines offer an equipoise surprising for the vintage but emblematic of Philippe and Vincent’s mastery of craft.

More on Foreau here.

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