Coudraye pants

Amirault 2004 Bourgueil “La Coudraye” (Loire) – Edgy. No, the wine’s not pushing any envelopes or breaking any taboos…I mean that this is a wine with edges, and they haven’t been filed down. Dark, slightly wild berries with no appreciable fruit-sweetness carry a little infusion of thyme (one of those exotic varieties, heady with aroma), there’s a foundation of dark earth hardened by time, and the quite-present tannin is as scraping as it is balanced. There’s no lack of acidity, either. The dominant aromatic characteristic, however, is raw tobacco, and while I quite like its expression in this wine, those reflexively indisposed to cabernet franc will probably interpret it as green. It’s nothing of the sort. All these positives thus said, I still wonder if the wine has the cohesiveness for aging, or whether it might not be better to drink it in its explosive adolescence. (4/09)