2022 Domaine des Sables Verts par Caroline et Hervé Malinge, Saumur-Champigny Rouge “Les Poyeux” Loire Valley, France.
The 2022 Domaine des Sables Verts Les Poyeux Saumur-Champigny is absolutely pure Cabernet Franc art its best with beautiful violets, hay, dark currant, red berry, plum, hints of bell pepper, chalky stones, anise and cedar notes in a stunning medium full bodied palate. Silken in feel, there’s a wonderful structure and balance here in this dark inky Cabernet Franc, this is a brilliant varietal wine right up there with the region’s legends and a great value too. The name, Sables Verts, or “green sand”, comes from the greenish sand present in many of the top vineyards of Saumur-Champigny, that is mixed with Clay-Limestone and Limestone-Silica in the topsoil which ultimately sits atop a bedrock of of the white and chalky limestone rich tuffeaux, which gives these wines their terroir distinction, as seen here. The Domaine des Sables Verts is converting the estate to full organic certification and, as noted by the winey, all grapes are hand harvested and vatted by gravity into their old underground cellar dug deep into the limestone tuffeaux bedrock. All the fermentations are native yeast and spontaneous, and apart from a few milligrams of sulfur before bottling, no additives are used in the vinification process here at Sables Verts. Notable also, the basic wines mostly undergo a short aging in stainless steel and used oak of 6-9 months, but for the parcellaire or cru wines here like Les Rouères Blanc, this Les Poyeux, and Les Clos Forènes, are all aged a minimum of 12 months before bottling. Les Rouères Blanc in a combination of 400L oak barrels and a 12hl wooden vat, while the Les Poyeux, and Les Clos Forènes, are raised in a combination of used oak barrels of various sizes, sandstone amphora, and stainless steel, which allow for soulful terroir transparency to shine though.
Certainly brand new to me, the Domaine des Sables Verts, which I understand is a relatively new winery run by a young couple of vignerons, Caroline (Meurée) and her husband, Hervé Maligne based in the village of Varrains in the Saumur area of the Loire Valley. According to the winery, Hervé and Caroline Maligne met while studying in Bordeaux, and despite having no family connections to the wine trade, they’ve (both) built impressive resumes in a relatively short time, to bring to their own project here in the Loire. After her studies, Caroline spent several years working at Chateau Lamothe in Bordeaux, while Hervé has made wine in Saint-Emillion (Chateau Jean-Faure), Burgundy (Domaine Decelle & Fils), and the Roussillon (Mas Amiel) under the tutelage of Olivier Decelle. This exciting winery has a 16 hectare Domaine, with 15 hectares of Cab Franc and 1 hectares of Chenin, that has its vines that are spread over 33 individual plots, with an average vine age of 40 years. Their neighbors are a veritable who’s who of the greatest vignerons in the region, including Antoine Sanzay, Thierry Germain, and most famously Clos Rougeard, who, as mentioned above, they share part of this Les Poyeux cru with. Interestingly, as they get started, to help finance the purchase of the Domaine, roughly half of the annual Cabernet Franc production by Caroline and Hervé is sold to the local co-operative. I need to thank my friend Alex Lallos again for turning me on to Domaine des Sables Verts and especially this wine, which completely left me spellbound and gave me a whole evening of pleasure and excitement. Arguably the crown jewel of the estate is the single-vineyard wine of Cab Franc from the famed “Poyeux” cru and its a stellar bargain, and has the potential to just get better and better, for now, and I highly recommend grabbing some before the word gets out!
($32 Est.) 94+ Points, grapelive