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Clos Rougeard

2006 Clos Rougeard, Saumur-Champigny, Les Poyeux

France Cabernet Franc Loire Saumur-Champigny 750ML

Wine Advocate

91
/
2006 Clos Rougeard, Saumur-Champigny, Les Poyeux
Clos Rougeard

2006 Clos Rougeard, Saumur-Champigny, Les Poyeux

France Cabernet Franc Loire Saumur-Champigny 750ML

Wine Advocate

91
/
0 In Stock
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The Foucault family ran the Clos Rougeard for 8 generations, and for long were more famous for being groundbreakers in the region by bottling their own wines rather than selling to negociants. Everything changed after a famed tasting in 1993, where a 1990 Le Bourg was the victor above Bordeaux chateaux like Petrus and Le Pin which were more expensive by a factor of at least ten. Charly and Nady Foucault ran the estate from 1969 until Charly's untimely passing in 2015, which led to the famed estate's sale in 2017 to the owners of Chateau Montrose. The brothers did set an impressive foundation to build upon, and left behind some of the greatest wines the world has ever known.

Clos Rougeard

Clos Rougeard stands as the absolute apex of the Cabernet Franc grape, owing in part to the tremendous vineyards, planted to vines largely in excess of a half-century of age, located within the greatest vineyards in Saumur-Champigny. The singular white Breze is just as highly sought-after and of tremendous quality, the Montrachet of the Loire. All of the vineyards are entirely tended organically, and never had chemicals used dating back all eight generations of ownership, and continuing into the first era of non-Foucault reign.

The Breze Chenin Blanc vines are 60+ years of age, and the wines are aged in 20% new oak. They will rarely finish their malo-lactic conversion, so are taut in their youth but absolutely stunning with age.

Three Cabernet Franc wines are created - Les Clos is a blended wine from three terroirs in the villages of Chacé, Varrains and Dampierre, an average of 50-70 years among them. Les Poyeaux is from 50+ year vines in Chacé, adjacent to the cellars where the tuffeau (limestone) is topped with eroded sandstone, allowing a bit softer, bright style in contast to Le Bourg; also in Chacé, these are 80+ year old vines in clay soils that are quite thin before you hit tuffeau, resulting in a dense, structured wine.

The wines were made with the same methods for as long as records were kept - 18-24 months aging in barrel following a native yeast fermentation in cement, with a small percentage of new oak used for Poyeaux, and the Bourg entirely in new oak to balance the tannin structure. Les Clos sees only neutral oak. One key to the elegance of the wines was that the press wine was always sold off, meaning that the Clos Rougeard wines resulted only from the free-run juice, not the harsher, more tannic juice that results from squeezing every drop from the grapes' skins. This is expensive, but was a must for the family (pardon the pun).

Early returns from the new ownership are exquisite, as they follow the Foucault mantra: “The only revolution at Clos Rougeard is that we have not changed anything!”

Meet the Producer

Clos Rougeard

The Foucault family ran the Clos Rougeard for 8 generations, and for long were more famous for being groundbreakers in the region by bottling their own wines rather than selling to negociants. Everything changed after a famed tasting in 1993, where a 1990 Le Bourg was the victor above Bordeaux chateaux like Petrus and Le Pin which were more expensive by a factor of at least ten. Charly and Nady Foucault ran the estate from 1969 until Charly's untimely passing in 2015, which led to the famed estate's sale in 2017 to the owners of Chateau Montrose. The brothers did set an impressive foundation to build upon, and left behind some of the greatest wines the world has ever known.

Clos Rougeard stands as the absolute apex of the Cabernet Franc grape, owing in part to the tremendous vineyards, planted to vines largely in excess of a half-century of age, located within the greatest vineyards in Saumur-Champigny. The singular white Breze is just as highly sought-after and of tremendous quality, the Montrachet of the Loire. All of the vineyards are entirely tended organically, and never had chemicals used dating back all eight generations of ownership, and continuing into the first era of non-Foucault reign.

The Breze Chenin Blanc vines are 60+ years of age, and the wines are aged in 20% new oak. They will rarely finish their malo-lactic conversion, so are taut in their youth but absolutely stunning with age.

Three Cabernet Franc wines are created - Les Clos is a blended wine from three terroirs in the villages of Chacé, Varrains and Dampierre, an average of 50-70 years among them. Les Poyeaux is from 50+ year vines in Chacé, adjacent to the cellars where the tuffeau (limestone) is topped with eroded sandstone, allowing a bit softer, bright style in contast to Le Bourg; also in Chacé, these are 80+ year old vines in clay soils that are quite thin before you hit tuffeau, resulting in a dense, structured wine.

The wines were made with the same methods for as long as records were kept - 18-24 months aging in barrel following a native yeast fermentation in cement, with a small percentage of new oak used for Poyeaux, and the Bourg entirely in new oak to balance the tannin structure. Les Clos sees only neutral oak. One key to the elegance of the wines was that the press wine was always sold off, meaning that the Clos Rougeard wines resulted only from the free-run juice, not the harsher, more tannic juice that results from squeezing every drop from the grapes' skins. This is expensive, but was a must for the family (pardon the pun).

Early returns from the new ownership are exquisite, as they follow the Foucault mantra: “The only revolution at Clos Rougeard is that we have not changed anything!”

The Wine Advocate

Wine Advocate

91

The Foucaults’ 2006 Saumur-Champigny Les Poyeux is decidedly gamy in the nose, with concentrated blackberry and cassis as well as beet, rhubarb, sweet pea, brown spices, black tea, and dark leafy green notes, a remarkable combination that has me imagining a Cabernet Franc – Gruner Veltliner co-fermentation! Firmer, brighter, and more austere than the corresponding regular Clos bottling, this also displays saline, peaty, iodine mineral depth, all of which will set it in good stead for another 5-7 years of bottle aging, during which it is likely to retain its striking complexity while taking on a more flattering textural patina. It was possible for me to garner only a limited perspective on recent vintages when I visited in June at Clos Rougeard (for more about which, see my report in issue 172). The 2009s had not entirely completed malo-lactic fermentation, but Nadi Foucault – who compares them with 1990s, and 2005 with 2009 – proudly showed them off; and no wonder, as they display awesome potential and a richness unprecedented in my experience of Loire Cabernet Franc, yet without going overboard or (as it appears at this early stage, anyway) suffering any ill-effects from high alcohol. The Foucault brothers’ 2008s had barely finished their malo-lactic transformations ahead of the 2009s and were themselves not only gassy but resistant to scrutiny, while the 2007s had just recently been disturbed by assembly into tank in preparation for bottling, in which state the Foucaults were loath to show them. (Notes on the estate’s recent whites can -- in the print edition of this report – be found in my parallel report: “Anjou and Saumur: Nobly Sweet and Nobly Dry.”)

What the Critics are Saying

The Wine Advocate

Wine Advocate

91

The Foucaults’ 2006 Saumur-Champigny Les Poyeux is decidedly gamy in the nose, with concentrated blackberry and cassis as well as beet, rhubarb, sweet pea, brown spices, black tea, and dark leafy green notes, a remarkable combination that has me imagining a Cabernet Franc – Gruner Veltliner co-fermentation! Firmer, brighter, and more austere than the corresponding regular Clos bottling, this also displays saline, peaty, iodine mineral depth, all of which will set it in good stead for another 5-7 years of bottle aging, during which it is likely to retain its striking complexity while taking on a more flattering textural patina. It was possible for me to garner only a limited perspective on recent vintages when I visited in June at Clos Rougeard (for more about which, see my report in issue 172). The 2009s had not entirely completed malo-lactic fermentation, but Nadi Foucault – who compares them with 1990s, and 2005 with 2009 – proudly showed them off; and no wonder, as they display awesome potential and a richness unprecedented in my experience of Loire Cabernet Franc, yet without going overboard or (as it appears at this early stage, anyway) suffering any ill-effects from high alcohol. The Foucault brothers’ 2008s had barely finished their malo-lactic transformations ahead of the 2009s and were themselves not only gassy but resistant to scrutiny, while the 2007s had just recently been disturbed by assembly into tank in preparation for bottling, in which state the Foucaults were loath to show them. (Notes on the estate’s recent whites can -- in the print edition of this report – be found in my parallel report: “Anjou and Saumur: Nobly Sweet and Nobly Dry.”)