Bernard Baudry is one of the newer stars of the Chinon scene. A graduate of the Lycée de Beaune, Baudry created his 25-hectare estate out of family parcels and purchased land. He quickly rose to prominence in the appellation for precise, textured Chinon. Baudry is now retired and his son Matthieu, who has been making wine with his father since 2000 (not to mention New-Zealand and California before making his way back home) has taken over as head vigneron. Baudry is at the vanguard of a new approach to traditional Chinon: purity and extract. In A Wine & Food Guide to the Loire Valley (the most comprehensive guide to Loire Valley wines yet written), Jacqueline Friedrich writes, “My interest in Loire wines hadn’t gone much further than the tasty “petits Chinons” I habitually drank in the wine bistros of Paris. In four days I changed my mind completely. Not only did my thirst grow for the mouth watering little Chinons, but I found the “serious’ versions made by vignerons like Charles Joguet and Bernard Baudry exhilarating.”
