Saumur, Loire Valley, France
Arnaud Lambert is leading a revolutionary movement in the Central Loire Valley appellations of Saumur and Saumur-Champigny. His goal is to spotlight each of his vineyard’s distinct terroirs and to express their potentials through organic viticulture and precise, minimal-intervention winemaking. Tuffeau is the yellow-tinged limestone that was quarried in times past to build the magnificent châteaux in the central Loire. Today, tuffeau’s incomparable soil signature is responsible for the equally magnificent Chenin Blancs and Cabernet Francs grown upon it. Lambert’s Chenin Blanc Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg bottling casts a bright lemon-gold hue and classic Saumur Blanc aromas of Anjou pears, green pineapple, beeswax, and perfumed tuffeau soil. Showing superb cut and tension on the attack, the wine presents a taut mouthful of pear-driven Chenin fruit framed by yellow limestone minerals and electric acidity. Complex suggestions of quince, sweet cinnamon, fresh ginger, lanolin, chamomile, and honeycomb emerge on the wine’s long finish followed by a tactile dusting of salty, lip-coating limestone minerals. This is bone-dry, “grand cru” Chenin for a song. Pair it now and over the coming three years with freshwater fish dishes, aged chèvres, recipes featuring chanterelle mushrooms, and roast pheasant.
Certified Organic
A July 2022 newsletter selection
