On the strong recommendation of the sommelier, I ordered a bottle of this last month at the Chateau de Pray’s restaurant in Amboise. The wine was just beautiful–lovely floral aromas were followed by fresh, lively taste notes of strawberries, herbs and a touch of earth, with nice minerality. Long finish. Delightful stuff!
Drool factor!
Love this Joguet vineyard.
How have things changed after joguet retired in '96?
Maybe someone else can answer this–I’m pretty much a Loire ignoramus.
If you read carefully through the posts on WB, it’s clear that the domaine is tragically a shadow of its former self and the wines are just as good as they ever were 
+1!
Sounds great Randy.
The sommelier really knew his stuff, Howard–this was the best of the three Loires our party of five drank that evening, but the other two–a Vouvray and a Saumur (I’ve misplaced the scrap of paper on which I wrote the names)–also were excellent.
I regard the era around 2000 as one of the domaines dips. The region didn’t have the beneficial vintage that Bordeaux had that year (it is surprising how much cross over there is between the two at times) and IIRC this was in the final years of winemaker Michel Pinard’s work here. Having said that, I haven’t tasted any 2000s from the domaine for over a deacde (!!!), including the Clos du Chêne Vert; it was a good enough wine back in 2003, and I am sure age has done it some favours. For me things really picked up when François-Xavier Barc returned to the domaine, which was in 2003.
Interesting!
I found the scrap of paper with the names of the other two Loires we drank that night–unfortunately, and embarrassingly, I find that I neglected to write down the vintages or any TNs. The wines were, in any event, very, very enjoyable. One was a V. Carême Vouvray “Le Peu Morier;” the other an A. Sanzay Saumur “Les Salles Martin.”
Two really good choices. I first met and wrote about Vincent Careme back in 2010, when he was fairly unknown. His sparkling wines have been superb from the outset, but the still wines have really improved in the past 2 or 3 years, and I would place him right at the top tier of the appellation, along with Huet, Foreau, Pinon, Fouquest & Champalou. Le Peu Morier is one of two (probably the lesser of the two) sites they have on the première côte.
Antoine Sanzay has also gone from unknown to very popular and well known over a similar time frame. An organic domaine, Antoine has gradually been taking the family’s vines out of the co-op. I first met him back in 2009, when I stumbled across him at the Salon des Vins de Loire that year, His wines were evidently good then, they are even better now.