Les Choisilles is named after the type of black flint abundant in the parcels that gift this wine. The main vineyards involved are Les Epinais, La Taille aux Loups and Clos Renard. The bedrock across these sites is tuffeau (limestone), and the vines range in age from 30 to 90 years. From 2021, Pierre Chidaine has used the oldest vines in Les Epinais (now over 60 years old) to make a single lieu-dit wine. In style Les Choisilles is a concentrated, focused dry wine that often needs several years to develop.
There is a touch more extract than in the Clos du Breuil. As the wine saturates your palate you notice the tighter acidity of 2021 and more of the struck-flint smokiness so typical of the Choisilles rocks. It's another alluring, pure-fruited Chenin, full of chew and bite, with waves of creamy stone fruit and mandarin shouldered by energetic acidity and pungent mineral freshness. Smokin’.