Saumur blanc Clos des Carmes Monopol Brézé AOC 2021

A dry Chenin Blanc with an uncompromising limestone imprint. At 12.5% vol. it remains lean in build, its drive carrying from the first sip through to the finish. In its youth this wine tends to challenge rather than charm, and it rewards patience.

Brézé, south of Saumur, is not a village surrounded by vineyards but a single limestone ridge that rises noticeably above the surrounding land. Beneath the thin topsoil lies tuffeau, the porous, chalky limestone of the Turonian age, which stores water and slowly releases it back to the vines during dry summers. The Clos des Carmes is the estate's walled monopole vineyard; Robert Guiberteau bought it in 1954, and even the gastronome Curnonsky counted it among the Loire's greatest sites.

Chenin Blanc, fully destemmed and spontaneously fermented with its own yeasts. Ageing takes place in foudres and used barriques, with malolactic fermentation blocked so the acidity retains its contour. Since 2000, Romain Guiberteau has farmed the vines organically, and in the cellar he keeps intervention to a minimum: the wine should taste of the hill.

First ripe yellow pear, white peach and quince, underscored by beeswax and crushed chalk. On the palate, lemon zest and green apple, a fine honey note and a saline, almost iodine-like minerality that carries the long finish.

With grilled pike-perch with beurre blanc, veal sweetbreads with capers and lemon, or roast chicken with herbs. An aged goat cheese from the Loire, such as a Crottin de Chavignol, also pairs well with its mineral texture.

Romain Guiberteau abandoned his law studies, renegotiated the family's leased vines back plot by plot, and bottled his first vintage in 1996. Over half of the estate's roughly nineteen hectares lie on the hill of Brézé, with vines ranging from four to eighty years old.