“No added sugar.” Loire Valley Chenin Blanc master Jacky Blot doesn’t use those words, opting instead for “Triple Zéro” to describe today’s brilliant
pétillant naturel. This style of sparkling wine may need no introduction—it is the sparkler of choice among natural wine aficionados, a cool-kid wine of the moment—but I’ll offer one anyway: Made from delicately-pressed juice that is bottled up before it has finished fermenting (trapping CO2 and yeast sediment inside), “pét-nat” is what sparkling wine was before the
Champenois refined the process—a wine that effectively “ends up” being effervescent, with little intervention from the winemaker.
And I must say, that
is cool, especially when a sparkler delivers this much energy, varietal purity, and pleasure at such a low price. As we’ve detailed a million times, the “Champagne method” usually involves adding sugar in at least two instances—first, when sugar syrup, or
liqueur de tirage, is added to a finished still wine to incite a second fermentation; and second, when a small, “corrective”
dosage of sugar is added right before the final bottling. “Triple Zéro” dispenses with both those steps but does embrace a different practice that makes Champagne wines great: long aging on the lees (the spent yeast cell sediment). The result is an exceptionally pure Chenin Blanc sparkler that is fun and refreshing on the one hand, focused and serious on the other. You need to taste this to understand why Jacky Blot is such a big deal for those “in the know” and the price-to-quality of his wines is hard to beat. Most
pétillant wines are charming. This one is downright seductive, and you don’t need to pay a premium for it.
Jacky Blot’s Domaine de la Taille aux Loups has become one of the leading estates in the Montlouis AOC, which is right across the Loire River from Vouvray. Some would argue, in fact, that Montlouis wines from the likes of Blot and François Chidaine are eclipsing those of their more-famous neighbors. One thing Blot is known for is a more resolutely dry take on Chenin Blanc, whereas many “dry” Vouvrays still contain significant levels of residual sugar—which lends roundness to the texture and accentuates the variety’s bruised apple/quince fruit. As acclaimed writer Jon Bonné notes, Blot “…believes sugar blurs Chenin’s ability to transparently reveal its best qualities, which is why his winemaking is almost fanatically Burgundian, although he prefers to describe it as ‘the school of Montlouis.’”
The Taille aux Loups vineyards, which Blot first acquired in the 1980s, are now Certified Organic and are planted to vines averaging 50+ years of age. In addition to his resolutely natural approach in the vineyards, his winemaking is suitably “non-interventionist,” with every effort made to minimize sulfur additions. As he himself describes it, Triple Zéro is a fully realized, naturally made Montlouis Chenin Blanc that happens to be effervescent. You won’t see a vintage prominently featured, but the wine is from 2017. The vintage is engraved on the bottom of the bottle, while the week and year of the wine’s disgorgement (yes, it is disgorged, unlike most pét-nats) are printed on the cork.
The name Triple Zéro references three points in the vinification process where sugar might be added to a sparkling wine: chaptalization (adding sugar before fermentation to bump up the potential alcohol, which, admittedly, very few producers do these days);
liqueur de tirage; and
dosage. This wine has none of that—just succulent Chenin Blanc fruit, fermented first in used oak barrels then transferred to bottles for 24 months of lees aging. Although driven first and foremost by its primary fruit component, the wine also displays a touch of the creamy, bread-dough quality that distinguishes great Champagne. In the glass, it’s a silvery straw-gold with green highlights, displaying more delicate effervescence than a Champagne (typical of the
pétillant naturel style). Aromas of apple, pear, and quince are tangled up with notes of chamomile, honey, crushed chalk, and wet stones. It is laser-focused and bone-dry, as no-dosage sparklers are wont to be, and yet there’s considerably more texture and length than I typically get from most pét-nats. This has some power and some real character, which doesn’t mean it isn’t the perfect poolside/beach refresher—just a better class of one! Serve it at 45 degrees in all-purpose stems as an apéritif with some goat cheese and cured meats, or with a tomato
panzanella loaded up with lots of aromatic herbs. This may be the wine of the Summer! Enjoy!
