Loire Chenin Blanc: Chaume the Way

BY REBECCA GIBB MW | JULY 16, 2024

A man walks into a bar and asks if it has any Brézé.

‘A Bacardi Breezer?’

‘No, Brézé – it’s a Loire Chenin Blanc.’

‘Sorry, no. I’ve got a South African Chenin, though.’

‘Hmmm. What about a Chablis instead?’

‘Oh yes, I’ve got two of those.’

‘Definitely no Brézé then?’

‘Sorry. Never heard of it.’

Chenin Blanc can produce diverse styles, from powerful dry whites to distinguished botrytized wines, in the vineyards on the right bank of the Layon River.

This is the challenge that the Chenin Blanc producers in the Loire Valley are attempting to address. The region may have a rich, royal heritage, its collection of riverside châteaux an ornate reminder of its prodigal past. Still, when it comes to the contemporary wine scene, it is far from the crowning glory of French whites. Its makers are well aware that they have a few prized jewels in their ranks but also understand they need to forge more gems.

As a result, a group of Saumur producers have been taking steps to segment their appellation and create more exigent rules designed to raise quality. The objective is not only to improve their white wines but also their renown. The region’s most famous wine village, Brézé, adorns the white wine labels of its most illustrious producers, including Clos Rougeard, Domaine Guiberteau and Arnaud Lambert. But the vineyards that sit within the Brézé area: Le Charpentier, Ripaille and Les Ardoises, hardly enjoy the same recognition as Meursault’s Les Perrières or the vineyards of Bougros or Vaudésir in Chablis. It’s clear that the Loire lacks the notoriety of Burgundy’s terroirs and the storied châteaux of Bordeaux, but it does have superlative terroirs and a bunch of star players. Efforts are being made to promote their best sites and instill ambition within an appellation that has long catered to an undemanding local market.

Since 2018, several members of the appellation have been working on a dossier that will be filed with the INAO later this year. There’s been a lot of work on terroir, and it’s hoped that the appellation authorities will accept their suggested splicing of the Saumur territory so that wines will bear not only the Saumur appellation name but also more specific geographic terms like Brézé, La Côte or Courchamps. These may be unfamiliar, but long before the Saumur appellation existed, Brézé was a celebrated wine. It had royal fans: in the sixteenth century, King René of Anjou enjoyed a glass or two of Brézé as did the Sun King, Louis XIV. French 16th-century poet Joachim du Bellay wrote of this Saumur wine: “His Nectar seasons us, Nectar gives it to us, My sweet vineyard Brézéen…” Today, a bottle of long-finished 1928 Grand Cru Brézé sits on a shelf at Antoine Foucault’s Domaine du Collier, which acts as a physical reminder that this part of Saumur has long produced stand-out wines.

Winemaker Arnaud Lambert is spearheading the development of the crus for dry Chenin in Saumur.

There may once have been a reputation for this terroir, but in an appellation dominated by cooperatives, there’s a sense that a return to greatness beyond a couple of producers seems entirely new. Many of the newer, younger domaines still sell a hefty chunk of their fruit to the cooperatives to support their independent terroir-focused endeavors, including the young Théo Blet, and Caroline Meurée and Hervé Malinge at Domaine des Sables Verts. Admittedly, there’s some vague awareness of the existence of Brézé beyond France, particularly if you buy Clos Rougeard or Romain Guiberteau’s whites, who write it on their labels. However, there’s a sense that, despite its storied past, Saumur’s independent, quality-minded producers have to do what Clos Rougeard, Guiberteau and others have done in the past decades by creating a reputation for their wines from scratch.

The ambitious dry white wine producers in Saumur thus face a steeper climb than the gentle slopes that punctuate these otherwise flat winelands. The current state of play is that half of the wine produced on this left bank of the Loire is sparkling. Typically, Chenin-based Crémant de Loire or Saumur fizz is destined for supermarkets at home and overseas. Approximately one-third is Cabernet Franc, its red reputation forged in the carafes of Parisian bistros, with the unicorn Clos Rougeard thrown in to show what is possible when you put your mind to it. Dry whites are hardly Saumur’s most famous wine style, and that’s the very reason for this project. The plan is for six approved terroir designations, DGCs or Dénomination Géographique Complémentaire. Producers would have to lower their yields (from 60hL/ha to 53hL/ha), hand harvest the crop and mature the wine in the cellar for a year before release. For quality-oriented white Chenin producers, these demands have long been a given. As one of the pioneers of this project, Arnaud Lambert, says, “We need to promote this way of working to new winemakers. If we can have more and more quality [white] wines in Saumur, it will be better for the appellation.” He admits there’s the ambition to institute Premiers Crus in the future, but getting this through the corridors of the INAO is the first hurdle to that long-term goal.

This protracted process has already been completed in Muscadet with a proliferation of crus communaux within the appellation based on soil type and extended lees aging. It has given wine writers and wine lovers something to get excited about and a reason to revisit Muscadet not just for an aperitif but as a serious, aged white wine.

In the Les Poyeux vineyards with co-owner Caroline Meurée of Domaine des Terres Sables.

Meanwhile, a little to the west of Saumur in the Anjou region, there’s been a not-dissimilar attempt to differentiate and gain recognition of some of their more famous vineyard areas, particularly those that have been included in the now-exclusively sweet wine appellation of Quarts de Chaume. Uttered in the same breath as Sauternes or Tokaji, Quarts de Chaume became the Loire’s first – and only – Grand Cru in 2011. The neighboring area of Chaume was assigned Premier Cru status. Good news, you might think, but it has not been universally welcomed. This Grand and Premier Cru title is only conferred on sweet wines at the same time as the wine market is thirsty for dry wines. For example, A dry white wine from grapes carefully grown on Quarts de Chaume, Chaume or Bonnezeaux is only entitled to the less prestigious Anjou Blanc.

It wasn’t always this way: under the appellation rules of the early 1950s, there was nothing to say you couldn’t make dry or medium-dry wines as long as your grapes reached a certain ripeness and the final wine reached a minimum of 11% alcohol. The vignerons knew that the conditions weren’t always conducive to making scintillating botrytized wines, and these original rules acknowledged the reality. Chenin’s living legend, Patrick Baudouin, looks back to its past as a blueprint for the future of Anjou. He is at the forefront of the call for allowing these terroirs to shine regardless of the residual sugar in the final wine. He lambasts the changes that occurred over the past 30 years: “The appellation changes of 1996 ratified the need for chaptalization in these [so-called] terroir wines to achieve the sweet character of Chenin from the south of the Loire. This evolution has broken the fundamental link between Chenin and these terroirs by necessitating an artificial enrichment technique that is better suited to the production of volume wines than of fine wines, the latter being the original definition of appellation wines.” Paired with the growing unpredictability of seasons, as well as the drier, hotter conditions leading to earlier harvests, the likelihood of botrytis decreases. And yet, the future of these appellations in their current form relies on the appearance of botrytis.

Yet Chaume must go on, as my snazzy blue Château de Plaisance t-shirt declares. A relatively recent addition to the Anjou wine scene, Plaisance’s owner, Vanessa Cherruau, has vineyards in both Chaume and Quarts de Chaume but makes mostly dry white wines classified as Anjou Blanc. She also produces dry Chenin on the other side of the Loire River in Savennières. This appellation is best known for its dry whites, but it fiercely guarded its right to make sweet wines, which, in theory, could be a range of styles. It’s a similar story to the east in Vouvray, whose wines span the full range of dry to sweet, depending upon the conditions that nature dishes up. Why can’t Bonnezeaux, Quarts de Chaume or Chaume have the same flexibility? Following much to-ing and fro-ing, the producers and the rule makers, the INAO, have reached a stalemate, and the campaign has been parked – for now. It seems to be short-sighted and a shame that its producers are railroaded into making a specific wine style, even if the growing season’s conditions may not be suited – and going against a general decline in sweet wine sales and a concurrent growth in dry wines. I’m convinced we haven’t heard the last of this.

Ivan Massonnat, the owner of Domaine Belargus, a new, ambitious Anjou producer forged from the wine estate of Jo Pithon.

Vintage Report

2022

You didn’t need to be able to walk on water to cross the Loire River in the summer of 2022—a record drought left virtually dry, sandy banks where the river once flowed. In the middle of August, several days of heavy downpours reacquainted locals with their umbrellas before yet another record heatwave hit at the start of September. Temperatures between September 3 and 11 were unprecedented, reaching daily highs as much as 6-9˚C higher than they ought to have been at that time of year.

Based on the weather report, readers won’t be surprised to hear that the wines of 2022 reflect the heat and drought experienced. Sunburn was a major factor in crop losses. In Saumur, Meurée remembers the berries being burned despite the protection of leaf cover, losing as much as 50% of their fruit to sunburn. The lack of water necessarily kept yields low – it’s difficult for berries to swell when the ground is parched. With its naturally thick skins and a paucity of juice, the danger for winemakers was the risk of extracting phenolics, leading to tannic wines. Those who handled their Chenin Blancs carefully by hand harvesting and whole bunch pressing were better placed to do this, but they still had to press a little harder than they would have liked to extract. Inevitably, phenolics are a component of the vintage and machine-harvested-fruit wines that can be rather rough or rustic in mouthfeel. Vouvray’s Vincent Carême explains in a warm vintage, such as 2022, “I always separate the last juice because the alcohol is high and the potassium levels are high [from the skins], increasing your pH and the phenolics are high. We are looking for acidity, not too much sugar nor phenolics; we separate off the last 10% of the press.”

The resulting wines are rich with ripe fruit and gentle rather than racy acidity. They are charming, welcoming and open from the off. Alcohol levels tend to be high, but there are others who have produced fresh, dry wines that are just 12.5% in alcohol, such as Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in the bijou appellation of Montlouis-sur-Loire. One reason for these modest alcohol levels could be because they started picking before the September heatwave hit. Still, those with lower alcohol levels often admit that their vines experienced what the French call blocage, a term which refers to vine leaves closing their stomata in hot, dry conditions to prevent any possible water loss through these pores. It also stops the process of photosynthesis and, thus, maturity.

The subterranean cellars of Domaine des Sables Verts in Saumur are hewn from the local limestone rock.

In this vintage, older vines seemed to have coped better than younger vines, perhaps due to their more extensive root systems, mitigating some of the vintage’s excesses. Cooler soils and those with better water retention were also more favorable, such as the slow-release sponge of limestone, while hot, free-draining sandy vineyards suffered the most.

The finer end of the Loire wine market will be looking at 2022 Chenin Blanc releases that have spent time in the cellar now and in the months ahead, but for the fresh, early-drinking Chenins that see their release in the spring following their harvest, 2023 is available. And what a contrast to 2022. Forget the drought-ridden conditions; 2023 was a soggy season that left growers in despair: powdery mildew, rainfall swelling grapes, diluting the crop’s concentration, acidity and sugar levels, as well as the debut appearance of the Drosophilia suzukii, aka Suzukii fruit fly in the Chenin-growing sectors of the Loire. The smell of vinegar permeated the air around vineyards as the 2023 harvest beckoned. These fruit flies can penetrate the skin of the berries and lay eggs, which can hatch and eat the grape from the inside, or they can take the easy entry thanks to any skin damage or splitting. The easiest way to identify it is the sour vinegar smell of acetic acid. It also turns the fruit shades brown, orange and purple and causes the pulp to liquefy. That’s not something you want to have in your fermenting wine vat, but those machine harvesting wouldn’t have been able to separate this rotting fruit unless they sent a team in to cut out the spoiled bunches before sending in the picker.

Timing was everything. Growers had to make difficult decisions: waiting for the fruit to ripen and risking it turning to vinegar. The hand-harvesting crews were busier than ever; as much as half the crop would be dropped to the ground before a single grape could be harvested. For the most rigorous producers, berry sorting was implemented at the winery, with regular tasting of the juice when it left the press and throughout the fermentation to check it would make the grade – which was not guaranteed. Cyril Chirouze, the new cellar master at Clos Rougeard, had just left his previous role in Beaujolais, and it was his first season in Saumur. Although he may not have initially enjoyed the experience, he now looks back and calls it 'a wonderful, welcome gift!' He mentioned that it was good for him to understand the fragility of Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc. In barrel, his 2023 Brézé offered purity and precision, defying the season. It might not be the most concentrated example ever made, but it’s impressive when you hear the story of the vintage.

Cyril Chirouze, the new cellar master at Clos Rougeard, faced a difficult first vintage in charge in 2023.

The early-release wines are starting to emerge off the bottling lines, and while it’s a little too soon to assess as the best are yet to come, the 2023s are lighter, less concentrated and less complex. I’d advise looking for hand-picked, well-sorted wines, as volatile acidity levels in parcels affected by the Suzuki fruit fly will be elevated. Wherever you go, the most alert producers always show that attention to detail that truly pays off in a challenging season.

The wines were tasted during a two-week trip to the Loire Valley, including appellation tastings held at the offices of Vouvray and Montlouis-sur-Loire and many producers’ visits. Some samples were also tasted at home in England.

© 2024, Vinous. No portion of this article may be copied, shared or re-distributed without prior consent from Vinous. Doing so is not only a violation of our copyright, but also threatens the survival of independent wine criticism.

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