2019 Saumur-Champigny, Trezellières, Domaine des Closiers, Loire
About this WINE
Domaine des Closiers
Located in Parnay, at the heart of Saumur-Champigny, Domaine des Closiers has just gone through one of the most exciting rebirths in the region. Leaving a lifetime of consultancy behind him, Anatole de la Brosse decided to make a U-turn in his career and strive to become the best winemaker he could possibly be. This brought him to acquire Domaine des Closiers in 2019.
From the get-go, he heavily invested in the winery and vineyards, transforming his 15 hectares of vineyards to organic and introducing biodynamic practices. Anatole has the luxury of having some of Loire’s great vignerons helping him in this transformation. Indeed, Michel Chevré (Clos de l’Ecotard) and Nady Foucault (Clos Rougeard) are consulting Anatole on his vineyard conversion and winemaking elevage. Anatole truly believes in nature doing its work with as little intervention from humans as possible - vines need to listen to their ecosystem, and humans have nothing to say about it – that’s the philosophy behind the estate.
The range is 95% focused on Cabernet Franc expressed through three different cuvees – Les Closiers, Les Coudraies, and his top wine Trezelliers. Anatole also has some Chenin planted, which can be found in tiny quantities through his cuvee Allegory. Many of his peers are dubbing him the next Clos Rougeard, a fascinating project to watch closely in the coming years!
Cabernet Franc
Cabernet Franc is widely planted in Bordeaux and is the most important black grape grown in the Loire. In the Médoc it may constitute up to 15% of a typical vineyard - it is always blended with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot and is used to add bouquet and complexity to the wines. It is more widely used in St.Emilion where it adapts well to the cooler and moister clay soils - Cheval Blanc is the most famous Cabernet Franc wine in the world, with the final blend consisting of up to 65% of the grape.
Cabernet Franc thrives in the Loire where the cooler growing conditions serve to accentuate the grape's herbaceous, grassy, lead pencil aromas. The best wines come from the tuffeaux limestone slopes of Chinon and Bourgeil where growers such as Jacky Blot produce intense well-structured wines that possess excellent cellaring potential.
Buying options
Add to wishlist
Description
This is my first taste of Domaine des Closier’s top bottling, les Trezellières, made from a parcel of old vines and given fully two years of ageing in barrel, with somewhere between ten and twenty per cent of the casks new. The 2019 Les Trezellières is beautifully deep and refined aromatically, delivering scents of black cherries, cassis, Cuban cigar wrapper, a very complex base of soil, a touch of Cheval Blanc-like menthol, a gentle dollop of tree bark, cedar and a top note of cigar smoke.
On the palate, the wine is pure, full-bodied, elegant and rock solid at the core, with great focus and complex, superb soil undertow, fine-grained tannins and a very long, refined and classy finish. The small percentage of new oak gives this wine more refinement than the Les Coudraies bottling, but because it is no more than twenty per cent new oak, the wood influence is far more subtle out of the blocks than in Clos Rougeard’s Le Bourg bottling, which is the closest comparison I can think of for this brilliant young Saumur-Champigny.
Give this beautiful wine plenty of time in the cellar to properly resolve its tannins and ultimately blossom!
Drink 2031 - 2085
Score: 96/100
John Gilman, View from the Cellar, ViewFromTheCellar.com
wine at a glance
Delivery and quality guarantee