Domaine du Collier 2018 Saumur Blanc

750ml bottle
13% abv

Pale gold. Restrained nose of beeswax, honeysuckle, and autumn apples, with pear, dried fruit, and a touch of smoke. Lovely body and texture on the palate, with unctuous white pear and a balancing lemony acidity. Rich, fleshy, and concentrated from the warm vintage, with luminous chalky freshness. Long finish.

100% Chenin Blanc. Vines 25 to 75 years old, sourced predominantly from the Ripaille site in Brézé, from all Chenin Blanc parcels outside La Charpentrie. Clay-limestone soils over chalky tuffeau bedrock. Stony, poor soils worked to send roots into the tuffeau subsoil. Organically farmed, no chemical fertilizers or weed killers.

Hand-harvested with strict sorting. Wild yeast fermentation. Extended aging 24 to 36 months without racking in a cold underground troglodyte cellar. Zero sulfur additions until bottling. Bottled unfined.

The 2018 was a warm, sunny vintage in the Loire, one that risked producing heavy, overripe whites. The Revue du Vin de France noted that the luminous, chalky freshness of Collier's Chenins stood apart from the vintage tendency. At 8 years from vintage the wine is in active, developing maturity.

Domaine du Collier was founded in 1999 by Antoine Foucault, son of the legendary Charly Foucault of Clos Rougeard, and his partner Caroline Boireau. Antoine worked four years at Clos Rougeard before purchasing his first four hectares in Brézé at age 26. The estate now covers 6.5 hectares, planted predominantly to Chenin Blanc (including parcels of 100-year-old vines) with just under a hectare of Cabernet Franc. Though Clos Rougeard's reputation was built on Cabernet Franc, Antoine found that his Brézé terroir, – stony, poor, chalk-rich tuffeau – was more naturally suited to white wine. The Chenin, as he has said, came easier to him than the Franc.

The winemaking is as hands-off as serious Saumur gets: wild yeasts, no sulfur until bottling, no racking for up to three years, aging in a cold underground cellar that maintains natural stability without intervention. The 2009 was a warm, generous vintage in the Loire, producing whites of unusual richness and ripeness without the austerity of cooler years. At 16 years of age this bottle is well into its maturity and drinking at or near its peak. It is among the five best vintages of the Saumur Blanc, one of the more significant bottles you are likely to encounter from this appellation.