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.