Les Quatre Piliers

A Star is Born: Spine-tingling Whites and Reds from a Fast-Rising Loire Valley Talent
Les Quatre Piliers
This is the kind of story IFW has told many times. And it’s one we’ll never tire of telling. Young winemaker, disenchanted with the wines of his region, starts producing organic, low-yield wines of place that turn the reputation of his appellation on its head. Think Dagueneau, Chidaine, Lamy, Guffens, Goisot and the rest. In short, just the kind of grower we’re always looking for. In this case, we’re talking about Valentin Desloges in Touraine.

Desloges—a young grower based in the pretty riverside village of Noyers-sur-Cher—has been raved about by impeccable sources as one of the Loire’s hottest talents. Valentin worked with soul brothers Raphaël Coche (Coche-Dury) and Thierry Pillot (Domaine Paul Pillot) before returning home to take control of his father’s vines. His first vintage was 2020. There are currently 10 hectares in play, split evenly between the Cher’s right and left banks.

In Noyers-sur-Cher, Valentin works with five hectares planted to Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Pinot Noir, Pineau d’Aunis and Chenin Blanc. The cool, shallow terroir in the lieu-dit Les Puits aux Chiens features flinty, sandy white clay over limestone. On the river’s left bank at Saint-Aignan, a second terroir has older vines and red clay soils (again over limestone). It gives Desloges his top single-vineyard wines: Bel Air from Sauvignon and Au dessus de Vitré from Cabernet Franc.

In some ways, not least the remarkable quality of his Sauvignon wines, Valentin’s story reminds us of Didier Dagueneau, whom we first met not far away 20 years ago. Like Dagueneau when he started, Desloges is a driven young maker—headstrong even—heavily influenced by great growers in other regions, particularly Burgundy. Like Dagueneau, he returned home to an area not known for greatness. And again, like that great man, Desloges proceeded to farm at the highest level and work ultra-precisely in the cellar to produce wines of a quality far surpassing anything seen before in the region.

Valentin’s winemaking would not look out of place in the more progressive cellars of the Côte d’Or.  He micromanages the pressing to obtain the most balanced juices possible. He is experimenting with whole bunches for his Pinot Noir, but the reds are mostly destemmed. They ferment slowly with indigenous yeasts in stainless-steel tanks before aging in older casks sourced from Burgundy and Bordeaux. The whites are pressed as whole bunches and ferment and age in the same oak barrels. In the near future, Valentin hopes to use only his own barrels made from oak staves personally sourced from the nearby Loches forest and aged in-house. All the wines are bottled without filtration.
 
Without exaggeration, Valentin’s Sauvignon reminds us strongly of the great man mentioned above (and his son). Intense but nuanced, they are post-varietal wines of great intensity and finesse. The red wines are no less exciting. As a range, Desloges’ wines are a revelation—without doubt, already a reference for this beautiful area. Tasting them for the first time and seeing the work behind the wines gave us that wonderful buzz we can’t get enough of. We’re sure they’ll do the same for you. 

The Wines

Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Chapitre 1 2022
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Chapitre 1 2022

This incisive, Dagueneau-esque Sauvignon Blanc is drawn from vines aged between 20 and 50 years in the west-facing terroir of “Les Puits aux Chiens”. Sited on the right bank of the Cher River, it’s the highest point of the commune of Noyers, a cool terroir with shallow flint sands and white clay over Turonian limestone rock. Picked ripe, with barely any vestige of Sauvignon-ness, the grapes are pressed as whole bunches and ferment with indigenous yeasts in a selection of used barrels ranging from 228 to 500 litres. These vessels include those made using oak staves from the nearby Loges forest, selected and aged by Valentin Desloges himself (and coopered by François Frères). The wine ages for 12 months with a single racking and plenty of lees contact. It is bottled by gravity without filtration. Despite the negligible use of sulphur (1 g/L at the press and 2 g/L at bottling), it’s an incredibly focused, limpid, penetrating Sauvignon.

Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Chapitre 1 2022
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Bel Air 2020
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Bel Air 2020

Valentin Desloges’ flagship white comes from the Bel Air terroir, a south-facing site on the left bank of the Cher River and home to the domaine’s oldest Sauvignon Blanc vines (some 60 years). It’s not simply the older, lower-yielding vines that contribute to this cuvée’s ravishing intensity. The soils are dominated by red clay, just below a layer of flinty sands, which further adds to the wine’s spicy generosity and textural breadth. The winemaking is not so different from the Chapitre I. However, this wine ferments in barrel and matures (for 18 months instead of 12) in ex-Coche-Dury barrels with 20% new oak from the domaine’s tailor-made barrels. The resulting wine is intense but nuanced, a superstar Sauvignon built on texture, crystalline fruit and smoky, rock-licking minerality. In the length, power, and wrought texture, there’s more than a hint of Pur Sang going on. In the words of French critics Bettane and Desseauve: “It’s a masterstroke.”

Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Sauvignon Blanc Bel Air 2020
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Cabernet Franc 2021
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Cabernet Franc 2021

There is a real finesse to Valentin’s red wines, as you might expect, given that he has worked with Thierry Pillot and Rafael Coche in Burgundy. The first of two Cabernet franc wines, this larger cuvée stems from a parcel of 45- to 50-year-old (on average) mass-selection vines in the red clay and silex soils of Saint-Aignan. Desloges crops at half the permitted yield for this region, and this wine ferments (with 5% bunches) in stainless steel without sulphur for two weeks. It is then transferred to used barrels from Cheval Blanc to complete its year-long aging.

In terms of style, Desloges’ lithe and pulpy Cabernet Franc wines resemble more the elegant shape and slender tannins of Thierry Germain’s Saumur-Champigny than, say, the Chinon or Bourgueil archetype. The wines are silky and vividly fresh, with the sensation of biting into a firm, juicy redcurrant (what the French would call croquant).

Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Cabernet Franc 2021
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Cabernet Franc Au Dessus de Vitré 2020
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Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Cabernet Franc Au Dessus de Vitré 2020

Home to the domaine’s oldest Cabernet Franc, the 70-year vines in Au dessus de Vitré root down through a blanket of red clay and limestone before tapping into the Turonian limestone bedrock below. It’s a terroir that infuses a deeper register of floral and mineral flavour than the Première Cuvée listed above. There’s a change in winemaking, too. Maceration lasts considerably longer at 22 days, with the juice slowly infusing flavour and gentle tannin from the grape’s skins. Then, the pressing is soft and slow (for the pressing geeks, Valentin uses just one bar of pressure), and the free-run juice ages separately from the press wine. Aging occurs in two- to three-year-old 228-litre barrels from Château Mangot for 18 months, and the wine (which may include some press wine depending on the year) is bottled without fining or filtration. The name Grand Cuvée says it all. It’s a super-pure and refined Loire red with lovely, cool, pulpy fruit, suave texture and a surprising salty twist on the finish. A Charles Lachaux or Théo Dancer kind of Cabernet Franc. To appreciate its full range of flavour and texture, Valentin recommends decanting this wine for an hour before serving.

Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Grande Cuvée Cabernet Franc Au Dessus de Vitré 2020
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“After honing his skills in prestigious Burgundy estates and abroad, the young Valentin Desloges established his own estate in his native Touraine. He converted seven hectares to organic farming on slopes and plateaus in the Saint-Aignan region. The two Sauvignon cuvées are exemplary...” Bettane & Desseauve

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