Hints of bacon fat, musky narcissus, and snuffed candle wick accept ripe quince in the nose of Baumard’s 2006 Savennieres Clos du Papillon, which brings some of the same sense of stone licking and fruit pit bitterness to bear on a creamy palate as in the corresponding “regular” (a.k.a. Clos St. Yves) bottling, but here more successfully integrated. Musky, bittersweet floral notes follow all the way through this to a gentle but satisfyingly persistent finish. I suspect that this would drink well for another year or two, but I do not fancy it being a keeper. I finally had the pleasure to taste personally with Florent Baumard (for more about whose domaine and methods, consult my report in issue 172) and found him a disarmingly astute critic of his own wines whose confidence I share that the best is yet to come from this vast and already justly renowned estate. I find a freedom from bitter or coarse elements and a clarity of flavors in the more recent wines that is welcome and which, when pressed, Florent Baumard suggests might in part be attributable to increasingly selective and watchful (though not necessarily gentler) pressing. The envelope-pushing here is evident in the quality of Baumard’s relatively high-volume sparking wines, rendered from blends unfamiliar outside of the Loire. The wines I tasted five years ago were good, but only modestly-recommendable (and I elected not to publish notes on them in issue 172). The lot numbers of Baumard non-vintage sparkling wines appear on the front label in very tiny, faint letters under the words “sparkling wine,” but cannot be read without good eyesight, and not if the bottle is wet! The Baumards’ “regular” bottling of Savennieres is from their Clos St. Yves vineyard between the Clos du Papillon and Roche aux Moines, and a fact of which I was not aware when I published my notes in issue 172 is that two different labels are used interchangeably, one of which indicates the vineyard name.Importer: Ex Cellars wine Agencies, Cambridge, MA; tel. (617) 876-5105

Baumard’s signature wine, named after the butterfly shape of the vineyard, is pure, exotic Chenin Blanc, rich, but not losing sight of the essential minerality of Savennieres, its stony element coming through in the tight texture. This should certainly age—drink now, or wait for five years. Screwcap.——R.V.(9/1/2009)—— 93