The 2015 Le Clos des Roches St. Paul from Marc Plouzeau is an absolutely beautiful young bottle of Chinon. This is a very small and prized terroir on the Left Bank of the Loire, and Monsieur Plouzeau has produced a very deep and supremely elegant young Chinon from this lovely vineyard in 2015. The bouquet is pure and still fairly primary, offering up scents of dark berries, cassis, a bit of tree bark, cigar smoke, a complex base of soil and a touch of menthol in the upper register. On the palate the wine is deep, full-bodied and seamless, with a lovey core of fruit, excellent soil signature, ripe, suave tannins and outstanding length and grip on the still quite reticent finish. This is a puppy and needs some time in the cellar to blossom, but it is so beautifully balanced that it is really not all that hard to drink in its still unformed youth! I do not believe that these vines are as old as those that Marc Plouzeau farms in les Cornuelles, so there is not quite the same core here, but this is a first class example of Chinon that is going to age brilliantly.
93 points John Gilman, View From The Cellar (Oct 2018)
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