This is Romain Guiberteau’s second 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. 

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).

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.

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 tronçonique barrels. This reverses the logic in the white releases, where Les Moulins is elevated above village level. Romain Guiberteau clearly thought the same, hence the pricing.

To mitigate the power of the vintage, Guiberteau avoided any punch-downs or pump-overs, only infusing the grapes in their own juice this year. The result of this approach in a seductive year is a wonderfully juicy yet layered red that is already accessible and delicious, with a core of pulpy, dark cherry fruit and subtle, roasted herb and peppercorn-like spice.

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 is 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.