B-21 Top Recommendation
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"What a great scoop for our Loire direct-import portfolio to have Philippe Alliet and his son Pierre join the fold ... these wines are easily among the very best in Chinon." - Andrew Kitz, B-21 Loire Buyer
While not extremely well-known on this side of the Atlantic, Domaine Philippe Alliet is one of the Chinon appellation's leading lights, standing in strong company right alongside the likes of Charles Joguet. Father and son Philippe and Pierre employ meticulous methods to their prized vineyard holdings (some of the very best in all of Chinon), spearheading a new wave of viticulture that emphasizes very low yields and optimally ripe fruit at all costs. The resulting wines are nothing short of revelatory, reference-point expressions, which we saw first-hand during a tasting last fall.
The entire range is superb, but the 93-point 2022 Vieilles Vignes offers a perfect introduction to this remarkable, must-know estate.Selecting from the oldest vines in their various plots, all at least 70 years old, the Alliets vinify and age the VV entirely in cement vats, while full de-stemming only adds to the sheer allure of the wine's personality and expression. As Yohan Castaing of Wine Advocate writes, "This vintage is one of the most precise and pure expressions of Vieilles Vignes I have ever tasted. Kudos!"
Turning to the single-vineyard cuvées, the 2022 L'Huisserie hails from a south-facing on Chinon's most favored hillside, the clay and flint soils imparting both a round, fleshy, full-fruited character as well as a firm mineral signature to the wine. This "multidimensional wine" showcase the Alliet style to a T, with none of the rusticity that often follows Chinon Cab Franc. Finally, the 2023 Coteau de Noiré is a stupendous expression of a Chinon "grand cru" site with similar clay and marl soils and a much steeper 40% incline. The wine exhibits a firm structural foundation, sappy mid-palate, and brooding fruit profile for what amounts to a pinnacle expression of cellar-worthy Cabernet Franc.
Best of all, we're bringing you the Alliet wines directly from the domaine as new additions to our rapidly expanding Loire direct-import range, so the quality for price, which was already outstanding, becomes essentially unbeatable in the category. | 
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