This is “grand cru,” incisively dry Chenin for a song! Mark our words: 2019 is going to be hailed as a benchmark vintage for the great Chenin Blancs of the central Loire Valley. Lambert’s Clos du Midi is sourced from a cool site near the top of the Breze hill, considered one of the wine world’s two finest sites for dry Chenin Blanc (the other being Savennieres). The 2019 Clos du Midi casts a pale straw-gold hue from the glass and classic Saumur Blanc aromas of Anjou pears, fleshy apricots, ripe mango, chamomile, and perfumed yellow limestone. Brisk on the attack, the wine presents a mouthful of waxy, pear-driven Chenin fruit framed by smoky limestone minerals and tensile acidity. Complex notes of quince and honeycomb emerge on the long pear and apricot-tinged finish, followed by a delicious dusting of lip-coating limestone minerals. Pair the wine now and over the coming five years with freshwater fish preparations, aged chevres, dishes featuring chanterelle mushrooms, and roast pheasant.
Arnaud Lambert is helping to drive a revolutionary movement in the appellations of Saumur and Saumur-Champigny. Lambert’s 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 is responsible for the equally magnificent Chenin Blancs and Cabernet Francs grown upon it.
