2020 Saumur-Champigny, Les Closiers, Domaine des Closiers, Loire

The 2020 Saumur-Champigny from newcomer Domaine des Closiers is very creamy, almost velvety. This is just the second vintage from this estate, and the fruit is sourced from several parcels and terroirs around the domain in the village of Parnay. In its light-bodied frame, plenty of primary red-berry fruit deserves drinking in youth; there's the merest touch of pencil lead, no greenness and a touch of spice. It provides balance just 13% alcohol), freshness and refreshment before leaving a fine dusting of chalky tannins. It's a really excellent wine with great drinkability.

In 2019, Anatole de la Brosse, a Champagne native and business consultant in Paris, bought a domaine off a retiring vigneron. The vendor had always sold his grapes to negociants, and he needed a single employee working the 15ha of vineyard alone. De la Brosse attempted to do both his job in Paris and revive this Saumur-Champigny estate, but in 2021, he dedicated his life to his vines and has a small team as well as a consultant, Michel Chevré of Clos de l'Ecotard. The vineyards are in organic conversion, and biodynamic farming is practised. 

Drink 2022 - 2030

A pure, expressive example of Loire Cabernet Franc, from a newcomer to the region: Anatole de la Brosse bought the domaine in 2019, and this is his second vintage. Crunchy cherry fruit on the palate intertwines with fresh blackcurrants, gentle spice and hints of graphite, with fine, chalky tannins.

Drink 2024 - 2028

Natural cork

Vinified in stainless steel tanks and then aged in barrels, the 2020 Saumur Champigny Les Coudraies comes from the low-yielding limestone slopes of Parnay that were cropped at 40 hectoliters per hectare that year. Vinified in stainless steel tanks and then aged in barrels, the Coudraies offers a deep and concentrated, spicy and fruity bouquet of dark fruits such as sour cherries and blackcurrant along with mint and dark chocolate. Full-bodied, round and intense on the palate, this is a substantial, dense and generous but structured Cabernet with very intense and juicy fruit, good mineral freshness, spicy tannins and a long and intense, very promising finish that is still a little astringent.

Drink 2025 - 2036

The Saumur-Champigny les Coudraies is one of the estate’s single vineyard wines, made from the best parcels in this hillside vineyard. The wine is aged in mostly older casks for one year before bottling.

The 2020 Les Coudraies comes in at 14% octane and offers up a simply gorgeous bouquet of red and black cherries, cigar wrapper, a touch of tree bark, a complex base of soil tones, juniper berry, a touch of cedar and a smoky top note. On the palate, the wine is pure, full-bodied and very elegant in profile, with a rock-solid core of fruit, firm, buried tannins, excellent focus and grip, and a long, complex and very, very promising finish. This is a great bottle of Saumur-Champigny in the making.