The Thibaud Boudignon Anjou 2023 is a dry, finely strung Chenin Blanc from Anjou in the Loire Valley, built on orchard fruit and chalky mineral drive rather than richness. Hand-picked fruit grown on clay over schist gives the wine both flesh and tension.

Aromatically the wine opens on green apple, ripe pear skin and quince, with beeswax, crushed stone and a lift of lemon blossom behind. The palate is dry and taut, apple and white peach carried on a saline, faintly smoky line, with none of the sweetness Anjou Chenin is sometimes assumed to have.

Vinified in a mix of steel and oak, the 2023 keeps a slim, upright shape. Acidity runs the length of the wine and the texture is lightly waxy across the middle, drying out to a long, stony, citrus-pith finish. The 2023 season in Anjou was a demanding one, with rain, heat spikes and rot pressure calling for rigorous sorting in the Chenin, and the wines that came through are lower in alcohol and brighter in acid than the run of recent vintages, which shows here in the wine's cut and lightness of step.

Serve with roast chicken and tarragon, grilled whiting, scallops with brown butter, pork loin with apple, or a wedge of aged comté.

Drink now through to 2033, with the middle years likely to show the most complexity as the wine builds honey and toasted nut character.