“Gigou’s Jasnieres ‘Clos St-Jacques’ – from very old vines – transports you to a world of considerable mystery and offers insights into why Jasnières was historically viewed as one of France’s grands crus.” – The Wine Advocate

One of the great perks of our job is to visit a winemaker, wander through the vineyards, learn about their philosophy, enjoy a spot of home-cooked lunch and conclude with a tasting of their wines. A wonderful perk, I’m sure you’d agree, but some bias must surely creep into one’s assessment of the wines. The less romantic, but arguably more clinical method, is to do it horizontally. No, madam, that is not what I mean! A horizontal tasting involves the side-by-side comparison of different wines from a particular vintage and that is how we discovered this absolute stunner.

We tasted around 150 Loire Chenin Blancs from the 2024 vintage, which included examples from Savennières, Saumur, Anjou, Montlouis and Jasnières, and the quality level was generally very high (e.g. Domaine des Baumard, Domaine FL, Chateau Plaisance, Domaine du Closel and Domaine des Sables Verts), yet this tall poppy was truly on another level and, as soon as we tried it, our pulse started racing, our pupils dilated and we recognised that old familiar feeling. Yes, folks, we were about to raise a purchase order.

Jasnières is a tiny appellation on the Loir, not the Loire, a small tributary about an hour south of the racing town of Le Mans. Very few people are familiar with it today, but it was the favourite wine of King Henry IV of France in the 16th century, so it has 500 years of history under its belt and the walled vineyard, ‘Clos St Jacques’, is the jewel in its crown. The vines are very old (averaging 70 years) and sit on a topsoil that is rich in silex (as you would more commonly find further east in Sancerre) above a tuffeau limstone bedrock, giving the wine a double-mineral turbo-charge.

If you need a reminder of what a ‘mineral’ wine tastes like, then do give it a try. It feels like the wine has found its way into the bottle via fissures in a rockface, over crumbled stone and tectonic ruptures, through flint split open with a pickaxe. That would make for a very austere experience if it didn’t have the balancing succulence of sweet fruit and, in-between the cracks, you may find yuzu, apricot, lime and greengage weaving their way through.

It was barrel-fermented (a costly exercise, but one that dramatically improves the way that the oak is integrated) then aged 50% in foudre and 50% in smaller format oak, with the barrels varying in age from 2 to 6 years. All of these little details add layers of flavour complexity that are seldom found in a wine priced at £23.95 per bottle, so we think it’s an absolute steal! You can drink it now, but like all great Chenin Blancs, it has the capacity to age at least 10 years from vintage. There are more fashionable Chenin producers from the Loire than Gigou, and maybe the likes of Thibaud Boudignon and Richard Leroy make arguably finer examples, but for sheer exuberance and flinty excess, we wouldn’t swap this one. 12.5% alc. Drink now-2034. Organic.

Press review:

Tamlyn Currin for JancisRobinson.com: “Sweet woodruff, honey, lanolin and pears. While Mabileau’s Chenin tasted like the gods were at war over the firmament, Gigou’s Chenin tastes like the dryads are holding a Spring flower festival in a wild meadow around a stone circle. It’s so damn pretty but also, beware, bewitching. The honey (light, redolent with acacia blossom) and pears (golden skins, dripping, a little raspy) are framed in herbs so perfumed and intoxicatingly pungent that I am sure they’re used for spells. The energy at the heart of the wine is tiny but fierce, as if the dryads harnessed a bee to power the light that fills every liquid-sunlight molecule of this wine. Wild orange on the finish. And then the stones. Stones on the finish. Flowers growing out of the stones. Good Value. Drink now-2034.” 17.5 points