2022 Domaine des Baumard Pic Martin Chenin Blanc Sec Anjou 750 ml

Domaine des Baumard is Chenin Blanc.

From the most powerful, structured dry wines to immortal dessert bottlings, when Baumard makes Chenin, it’s guaranteed to be complex and utterly captivating, at the top of its class. That reputation has made the estate an essential for collectors and MICHELIN-starred restaurants across the globe. 

This bone-dry, single-vineyard Anjou offers fantastic complexity, charming stone-fruit character, and a vibrant, bright finish. It's absolutely remarkable for the price, and it pairs effortlessly with everything. 

Over the last decade, there’s been a sea change in the Loire appellation of Anjou. Once just the little brother of nearby Savennières—the most famous dry Chenin appellation in the world—Anjou was known as the bistro Chenin: cheerier, softer, and cheaper than Savennières. But pockets of Anjou have truly world-class terroir, and smart vignerons have begun tapping into them.

Domaine des Baumard’s Pic Martin comes from one such standout vineyard, perched on a plateau near the town of Rochefort sur Loire. It boasts a perfect southwesterly exposure, and its 35-year-old vines sit in a true mélange of soils, with shale, sandstone, and volcanic components mixing to build complexity in the finished wine. In other words, if you were going to design a Chenin site for Chenin from scratch, you’d aim for a site like this—and Baumard capitalized on the warm 2022 vintage.

They harvested the perfectly ripe grapes by hand, carefully sorted them multiple times, then pressing them gently in a state-of-the-art pneumatic press. The juice fermented at low temperatures over an extended period, to preserve fruit and delicate flavors, before aging for nine months in stainless tanks.