This is 100% Chenin Blanc, grown on the calcareous soils in and around Brézé. More precisely, it comes from younger vines in Clos de Guichaux and Clos des Carmes, as well as some old vines from the Bas de Pentes terroir of Brézé. Then, there is a splash of Les Chapaudaises from Bizay. As any Saumurois will tell you, these terroirs are some of the crown jewels (particularly Clos des Carmes, which sits on the chalky mother rock of the Brézé hill, just below the Château de Brézé). The plantings range from 1935 to 2012, so this wine has plenty of old-vine stuffing. With all this in mind, perhaps the quality shouldn’t come as a surprise.

All Guiberteau’s whites are pressed as bunches and ferment with indigenous yeasts. Historically, this wine has been vinified entirely in tank, although more recent vintages have been partly aged in tronconique oak and used barrels to broaden the textural range and mitigate reduction. The 2022 did not go through malolactic conversion. It strikes the palate with laser-guided confit lemon and kaffir lime, with mouthwatering acidity cutting through the wine’s sleek texture like a hot knife through butter. Closing with the quivering, chalky length typical of the region’s top whites, it’s a thrilling Saumur blanc; we bought every bottle we could. Lovers of fine Riesling and white Burgundy should jump on this.

100% Chenin Blanc. This is Romain Guiberteau’s first release from the celebrated Brézé terroir of Le Bourg. Despite the name, this vineyard bears no relation to the Le Bourg in Chacé of Clos Rougeard fame. Guiberteau’s single hectare of vines (pictured below) sits below Clos des Carmes, sloping towards the village with sandy-clay soil over a soft, tuffeau limestone bedrock. The vines were planted in the 1940s, and the old-vine density from these gnarly old dames—matched with the site’s pungent minerality—creates a wine of significant intensity matched by deep-set tension. Romain jokes that one of the main challenges here is children from the neighbouring school kicking their football into the vineyard! Each year, the children are allowed to pick some grapes to make jam, too! Only in France.

Pressed as bunches and naturally fermented, Le Bourg ages for 12 months in used barrels before bottling. It’s a wine of menacing nerve, with more slate-like minerality than Guiberteau’s other Brézé cuvées. There’s real beauty in the waves of pithy citrus, crushed rock and smoky complexity, yet the penetrating length, flecked by chalk dust, aniseed and sherbert, tells us the best is yet to come. A striking wine that will benefit further from decanting.

100% Chenin Blanc. Guiberteau’s 1.4-hectare Clos de Guichaux is a historically renowned vineyard in the Bizay terroir in the small village of Épieds, near Brézé. It is a monopole for Guiberteau. The site is the classic clay/limestone of the region but has only 30cm of topsoil before the roots plunge directly into the pure, chalky bedrock. It’s quickly cementing its place as one of Saumur’s finest white vineyards—thanks to wines like this.

The 2021 is a perfectly ripe yet strikingly energetic white with all the trademark savoury, mineral drive one expects from this domaine. This wine ferments and matures for 12 months on lees in two- to four-year-old barrels (600-litre, light-toast Atelier Centre France and François Frères that had previously housed the Brézé cuvée), followed by six months in tank. An arresting, high-wire act of citrus, mineral, peppery spice and chalk, Guichaux did not go through malolactic conversion this year, and alongside its lovely transparency, the palate prickles with energy and tension. At this stage, the wine is still settling down from its aging, behaving very much like a young zeitgeist white Burgundy. It’s the kind of wine that sealed this grower’s enduring fame. Time, or air, will only take it to greater heights.

100% Chenin Blanc. Guiberteau’s 1.4-hectare Clos de Guichaux is a historically renowned vineyard in the Bizay terroir in the small village of Épieds, near Brézé. It is a monopole for Guiberteau. The site is the classic clay/limestone of the region but has only 30cm of topsoil before the roots plunge directly into the pure, chalky bedrock. It’s quickly cementing its place as one of Saumur’s finest white vineyards—thanks to wines like this.

The 2021 is a perfectly ripe yet strikingly energetic white with all the trademark savoury, mineral drive one expects from this domaine. This wine ferments and matures for 12 months on lees in two- to four-year-old barrels (600-litre, light-toast Atelier Centre France and François Frères that had previously housed the Brézé cuvée), followed by six months in tank. An arresting, high-wire act of citrus, mineral, peppery spice and chalk, Guichaux did not go through malolactic conversion this year, and alongside its lovely transparency, the palate prickles with energy and tension. At this stage, the wine is still settling down from its aging, behaving very much like a young zeitgeist white Burgundy. It’s the kind of wine that sealed this grower’s enduring fame. Time, or air, will only take it to greater heights.

100% Chenin Blanc. The modern renaissance of Chenin de Brézé (as it was once known) owes a great deal to the Foucault brothers’ Brézé bottling and, more recently, to a new generation of growers like Guiberteau. This striking wine comes from two small parcels of mature vines (planted in 1933 and 1952) within the fabled Brézé climat, a terroir that once produced wines as revered as those of the greatest vineyards of Burgundy and Bordeaux. The lion’s share of the fruit comes from an important lieu-dit called Bourguenne, while one-quarter of the fruit is also drawn from the historic Clos de Carmes terroir.

Guiberteau now uses larger-format barrels from different coopers. He prefers Atelier Centre France’s thick-staved demi-muids for this wine, and he’s also engaged Clos Rougeard’s local artisan cooper Dussiaux, whose barrels bring smoky/cedary complexity to this wine in its youth. Furthermore, Brézé now spends two years in barrel (50% new) and six months in tank, recognising its potency and coiled energy.

Year in and year out, this reminds us of the force of this incredible terroir. This place can simultaneously deliver the texture and savoury reduction of great white Burgundy and the raciness of great German Riesling. If the Clos de Guichaux calls to mind excellent Chablis, the Brézé style leans towards the textural richness of fine Meursault (at a fraction of the price). From a powerful year, 2020 is still a babe in arms, bristling with dry extract, smoky reductive notes, nutty complexity and vinous intensity. The distinction of the Brézé terroir shines through in the wine’s supercharged minerality; full of chalky intensity, salinity and tension, it is reminiscent of the historic Coche-Dury style of white and unbelievably impressive and seductive. 

The Brézé hill is home to at least nine historic and clearly delimited clos (or enclosed single climats), most still owned by the Château de Brézé. Three of these were singled out in the last century for their outstanding quality by Maurice Edmond Sailland (author of the Très Grands Vins de Saumur and better known by his pen name, Curnonsky). The Guiberteau clan own one of these three, the monopole of Clos des Carmes, acquired by Romain’s grandfather in 1955. That’s some good buying right there! It’s a south-facing vineyard that sits mid-slope on the belly of the hill and covers some 2.6 hectares. The entire parcel was replanted with mass-selection cuttings by Robert Guiberteau (Romain’s father) in 2004.

Only 0.8 hectares of the vineyard (producing 30 hl/ha) are used for the Clos de Carmes bottling, with the remainder declassified (for now) into the Saumur Blanc and Brézé bottlings. The maturation is the same as for the latter cuvée: whole-cluster pressing, indigenous yeast fermentation in barrel (new, one- and two-year-old oak) and 24 months’ aging on fine lees in cask. Despite the similar upbringing, this wine is typically more tightly wound than Guiberteau’s classic Brézé bottling. For this reason, the cuvée rests for a further year in the bottle before release.

That extra year means a lot. There is marked strength, yet the significant structure and ample dry extract tightly bind together every molecule of the wine. As Rajat Parr points out, Clos des Carmes is Guiberteau’s “standout white”—yet, veering deep into Burgundian territory, the wine’s saturating intensity and energetic force also make it the domaine’s most brooding. The review below describes the wine well. This is a multifaceted, epicurean white with an almost head-scratching tug of war between fleshy density, puckering phenolics and mouthwatering freshness.

100% Cabernet Franc. As with the Moulins Blanc, this label was initially created to provide a home for Guiberteau’s organic-in-conversion grapes. The vines are primarily located in Montreuil-Bellay and include a healthy portion of old-vine fruit from a recently acquired parcel on the Brézé hill. The vines vary in age from 10 to 80 years.

The wine was raised in stainless steel only, with just five days on skins. The idea is to offer a more open, delicious, early-drinking wine at a more accessible price than the village bottling—and it works. Elegant and crunchy, it’s a suppler, less angular release than the ‘21, with stony cherry flavours alongside spice, earth and lovely gravelly minerality.

100% Cabernet Franc. Guiberteau’s village rouge is sourced from three parcels of old-vine Cabernet Franc (planted from 1955 to 1957) on silty/sandy topsoils over limestone on the Brézé hill. Made entirely from destemmed grapes, this fruit-forward bottling fermented naturally in concrete before spending 12 months in large tronconique barrels. This reverses the logic in the white releases, where the Moulins is elevated above village level. Romain Guiberteau clearly thought the same, hence the pricing. The cool 2021 vintage has gifted a delightful example of this cuvée. Seductive aromatics of raspberry, nettle and earthy sage lead to a vibrant, tangy palate with lovely pulp and savoury mineral edge. The long, lingering finish suggests crushed berries, meat juices, violet, and woody herbs. If you like more fruit, go for Les Moulins. If you prefer more tertiary or savoury nuance, then this is your wine.

100% Cabernet Franc. Les Chapaudaises is in the Bizay terroir, in the small village of Épieds, within half a kilometre of Saumur’s prized hill of Brézé. It’s next to Guiberteau’s monopole Clos de Guichaux, on the same sandy tuffeau limestone. The vines are a mix of Chenin Blanc and old-vine Cabernet Franc. One hectare of the Chenin is leased to Romain’s right-hand man, Brendan Stater-West, with the remaining Chenin finding its way into the Saumur Blanc. But it’s the 1948-planted Cabernet Franc that is Guiberteau’s prize here. The fruit was destemmed and fermented spontaneously in concrete. The wine aged in conical Rousseau vats for one year before resting in a tank for six months. Here, the nose offers a lovely blend of dark cherries, a nip of liquorice and rosemary/roasted herbal notes. The palate is neat and generous, and while tannins are there, they are super-fine and polished. You could call it a Pinot-like vintage for this impressive vineyard.

100% Cabernet Franc. Les Arboises is a subsection of the limestone-dominant Brézé hill. This is Guiberteau’s top red from a renowned red terroir. The monopole parcel was planted in 1957 on a rocky, chalky site and produces super-graceful, mineral expressions of Saumur. The fruit is fully destemmed and naturally fermented in concrete before resting for 18 months in new, one-, two- and three-year-old barrels. Guiberteau used about 40% new barrels in 2020. He ages this cuvée for longer than his other reds—both in barrel and bottle—feeling this site’s more angular tannins require extra refinement.

In contrast to Les Chapaudaises, it offers not only the density of the vintage but also more barrel spice and chiselled length. It’s complex, assertive, and tightly coiled—a wine that begs for air, a big glass and a hearty, meaty food match. It’s impressive now (especially after a 30-minute decant) but will be brilliant with another five to 10 years in the cellar.

This lovely surprise was arguably the wine of our tasting last year. The town of Chacé lies five kilometres north of the Brézé hill, in the heart of the Saumur-Champigny appellation. Guiberteau’s other vineyards are classified as Saumur, so this wine marks Romain’s first Saumur-Champigny. Of course, Chacé will be well known to lovers of Clos Rougeard. This town is where Rougeard has its cellars and is home to its most famous vineyard, Le Bourg.

In 2016, Guiberteau purchased a quarter of a hectare of old, 1948-planted Cabernet Franc vines rooted in sandy-silt soil over limestone. Bottled only in magnum and limited to less than 1,000 bottles, the idea is to label this wine as Chacé only in exceptional years. In good years, the wine will be labelled Saumur-Champigny and bottled in 750ml.

Romain calls this old vineyard un lieu spécial, and judging by his first release, he is really onto something. The full maturation, using one- to two-year-old barrels, takes the best part of three years, and the wine rests for a further 24 months before release. We’re trying not to mention the B-word, yet this is very ‘Pinot’ in its floral-berry scents and silky entry. Framed by powdery, almost invisible tannins, the palate is infused with gorgeous red and blue berries and a trace of classy oak before tapering to a very long, mineral and chalky close. A sommelier’s delight.