Nouveauté
Nous vous présentons en exclusivité et pour la première fois, le monopole Clos de la Frelonnerie installé à Montlouis-sur-Loire, une nouvelle adresse qui fait déjà sensation! Porté par l’enthousiasme et la rigueur de trois talents du vin et amis vignerons – Stéphane Bodet, Alice Chidaine et Jean-Baptiste Bonnigal. Ce clos exigu presque oublié et entouré de murs séculaires se compose de vieilles vignes de Chenin dont les plus âgées frôlent les 120 ans. Bien sûr, il a fallu choyer ces ceps d’un autre temps, travailler la terre, réveiller les sols pour retrouver une biodiversité éclatante. Un véritable trésor de seulement 2 ha, unique en son genre et au charisme indéniable. Un étonnant microclimat préserve le Clos de la Frelonnerie du terrible gel d’avril 2021, année de naissance de leur premier millésime! S’adresse aux amoureux et aux collectionneurs de Chenin rares et confidentiels.

We present to you a recent addition to our portfolio, Bonnigal Bodet, one of the revelations of recent years in Touraine: the estate has entered the RVF’s guide to the best wines of France in 2024! Jean-Baptiste Bonnigal (none other than the son-in-law of François Chidaine) and Stéphane Bodet, a young and talented tandem who took over the property in 2015, offer us a variety of unrivaled quality wines an in this region of the Loire. Their friendship began while they were both students at the Montagne-Saint-Emilion wine high school in the Bordeaux region. Stéphane decided to leave Bordeaux to settle in Touraine in order to be able to join Jean-Baptsite, who represents the 5th generation of winegrowers in his family based in Loire at Domaine de Prévôté.

Together, they reduced the surface area from 80 to 40 hectares (in organic conversion) in order to refocus their production on their best plots in Amboise. A corner of Touraine where Côt (Malbec) and Chenin are highlighted. From the outset, they refused to produce standardized wines. Most of the work is carried out in the vineyard with rigorous soil work and the use of biodynamic preparations. In the cellar, everything is vinified in plots without chemical inputs in order to preserve the purity of the wines. Located in Limeray, close to the historic town of Amboise, the Bonnigal Bodet estate is part of the generation of producers who redefine the Touraine-Amboise appellation !

Domaine Bonnet-Huteau is situated in Muscadet heartlands, just inside the Sevre et Maine perimeter.

Ten years ago, two brothers—Jacques and Jean-Rémi Bonnet—abandoned conventional agriculture, making a return to fieldwork and low yields. Five years ago, their conversion to organic agriculture was complete.

A well-made Muscadet is a good deal. It’s nothing like the entry-level Muscadets one finds distributed all over the world. With the AOC’s enormous growing area – about 9,000 hectares, in total – it is harder to garner accolades from the press here than it is in, say, Vosne-Romanée. Connoisseurs will be pleased to note that that Château de la Tarcière is included among the sélection de vignerons in the reference book Le Chemin des Vignes / Vallée de la Loire  produced by Le Rouge et le Blanc.

The appellation of Saumur-Champigny could not have found a better person to preside over its producers union than Jean-Pierre Chevallier.

To the prerequisites of diplomacy and a sense of what’s best for everyone, Jean-Pierre also adds a touch of perfectionism. As a result of his presidency, the appelation’s wines have been able to ascend in quality levels. As early as twenty years ago, the Château de Villeneuve made a concerted effort to produce not just ho-hum wines, but superior wines reflecting their place. These wines can be classified among Saumur-Champigny’s trio of elites.

Their basic cuvée – which is anything but a basic wine – is sold in SAQs. It’s a Cabernet Franc de soif, but not without its own complexities. It is a sapid, highly drinkable wine, helped in no small part by the brightness of the fruit and the soft tannins. Fortunately, the wine is almost always availabile. The intermediate cuvée Vieilles Vignes, and the high-end cuvée Le Grand Clos are both distributed through private importation.

The appellations of Reuilly and Quincy are twin sisters in between Sancerre and Montlouis in the southern Loire. Coincidentally, both Domaine Lafond, a leading light in Reuilly, and Domaine Mardon in Quincy, are run by women. Nathalie Lafond, has carried on the work of her father Claude with as much fervor as he. (Without him, the entire appellation of Reuilly might have fallen into obscurity.) As in Quincy, the reds here are made from Pinot Noir (or Baco Noir) and the whites are, of course, Sauvignon blanc.

Two of Domaine Lafond’s wines are specialties at the SAQ: their brilliant sauvignon, Clos des Messieurs and their pinot noir Les Grandes Vignes, which offers spectacular value. The Guide des Vin de France by Bettane and Desseauve notes that “this key domain of Indre produces well-made wines of a beautiful constancy.”

The appellations of Jasnières and Coteaux du Loir are known almost exclusively to wine-world insiders. Small in size, they are hidden away around fifty kilometers north of Tours, on the slopes of Loir in the Loire basin. Getting there is a form of pilgrimage for oenophiles. Just ask Eric Nicolas. Originally from Paris, Nicolas and his family settled there twenty years ago to become a vigneron—and one with convictions.

The Nicolas family work with thirty plots spread over five communes. They farm and work biodynamically. Also, the vines are plowed, cropped, and harvested manually. The Nicolas’ are seriously hard workers. And they’re equally visionary: they now enjoy a reputation that is inversely proportional to the size of their AOCs. To put it bluntly: the Domaine de Bellivière make fantastic wines.

Bellivière’s chenins are among the most interesting delights of the entire Loire region. There is something infinitely alluring to their minerality and general disposition. Their Vieilles Vignes Éparses and Calligramme must be put in the cellar for several years before being opened.

Until a few years ago, the appellation of Montlouis was fairly quiet. The recent surge of interest in the region is largely due to the wines of François Chidaine and to his impact as a mentor-figure to the area’s young winemakers. In fact, the wines of his domain have been among the great triumphs in latter-day Loire. François Chidaine has been working in biodynamism since 1999. As he explains on his website, “each parcel of vines expresses itself differently due to the nature of soils, to their location, or to the age of the vines.”

Each year, Chidaine produces five cuvées from the terroirs of Montlouis. Two of them, Les Tuffeaux (demi-sec) and Les Choisilles are specialties at the SAQ, as is his Montlouis Méthode Traditionnelle. He has also started producing three cuvées of Vouvray, from the opposite bank of the Loire opposite Montlouis. One of them, the cuvée Les Argiles, is also in the SAQ. His others are available through private importation.