Wine of the week: a heavenly chenin blanc

published 30 May 2013

2012 Coteaux du Layon, Chteau la Tomaze, Vincent Lecointre, Loire, France (£12.95, Yapp Brothers, 01747-860423, www.yapp.co.uk).

I will never forget pouring a few bottles of 1990 Coteaux du Layon, Cuve Lys, Chteau la Tomaze, at a very grand dinner, blind, a few years ago. The guests had some of the greatest palates in the southern hemisphere and, while everyone adored it, all bar one guessed it wrong. Most went for very expensive, old, rare Sauternes. Yapp sells the 1995 vintage of this cuve for £29.95 and it is a beauty and there are still one or two bottles of the phenomenal 1990 in the cellar at Bibendum Restaurant (spectacularly priced at £65), so book a table now (www.bibendum.co.uk).

Anyway, Cuve de Lys, Vincent Lecointre's top sweet wine, wasn't made in 2012 because the weather wasn't quite warm enough. So what you get instead is my featured estate wine with all of the best fruit inside it, including the extra richness which would have been hijacked by its big brother had the weather played ball. These are all full' bottle prices, too, so you can see that this heavenly, honeyed, orchard blossom and juicy pear-imbued chenin blanc is awesome value indeed. Gosh, at just over a quid a glass, there's nothing to compare!

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