Fabien Duveau - Saumur-Champigny Chacé "Les Hauts Poyeux" 2019 (750ml)

Price: $52.99

Producer	Fabien Duveau
Country	France
Region	Loire Valley
Varietal	Cabernet Franc
Vintage	2019
Sku	202227
Size	750ml

Fabien Duveau Description

Fabien makes his wines in a cave dug in the 14th century from the same stone that later went to build the great Loire chateaux. The caves were first used as dwellings for the Saumurois, but the constant chill and humidity levels they harbor are friendlier to winemaking and storage than human habitation. The domaine, in Fabien’s family since the late 18th century, now spreads over 20 hectares within the roughly bounded triangle of Saumur-Champigny — to the north by the Loire, to the west by its tributary the Thouet, and to the east by the Fontevraud forest. The appellation is divided into communes, “very precisely grouped, according to strict geological criteria,” Fabien notes.

The name Champigny derives from the Latin Campus Ignis (fields of fire), a reference to the relative heat of the microclimate, the warmest in Saumur. Crucial to the freshness of the wines is, Fabien notes, “the land’s ability to store this heat by day and diffuse it by night.”

A low plateau of tuffeau, the yellow-white calcareous rock so distinctive of the central Loire, rises at the eastern edge of the town of Saumur and continues southeast, running under Fabien’s holdings. Tuffeau retains water as other limestones do, but drains more effectively, protecting against hydric stress while releasing water to the vines as needed. Overlaying the tuffeau is a mix of clay and limestone. Fabien attributes the velvet tannins, vivid fruit, and arresting freshness of his cab francs and the radiant intensity of his chenins to this soil composition. His aim is to allow the personality of each parcel to come through clearly in his wines.

The greater vineyard of Les Poyeux hosts a mythical terroir, home to some of the Loire’s most coveted red wines. Les Poyeux consists of 2 very distinct terroirs with unique expressions, in spite of the soil components being similar.

Les Hauts Poyeux, in addition to being the higher elevation portion of Les Poyeux, its distinctiveness lies in its depth of topsoil – 60 cm of the famous Poyeux sand before reaching the first levels of clay and limestone. In vinification, Les Hauts Poyeux sees a long maceration to elaborate the aromatics linked to this soil texture, followed by aging for 12 to 18 months in neutral barrique, to sublimate the aromatics and refine the fine tannins of the terroir.

Les Bas Poyeux, by comparison, is not only lower in elevation but contains an average of 20 cm of sandy topsoil over clay and limestone. This difference integrates a more prominent limestone imprint, giving Les Bas Poyeux its "blood" side. In the cellar, aging instead takes place in a mix of concrete and neutral barrel.