Domaine des Frères, 2021 Chinon ‘Les Moulins de Beau Puy’
The story of Domaine des Frères is not the more common multi-generation winemaking family story that we often see in France. In 2016, after a brief stint working in the office at his family's auto mechanic shop in Beaumont-en-Véron, Valentin Bruneau and his wife Marie made the decision that a life as vignerons was where their hearts wanted to be.
They moved to Mâcon so that Valentin could study viticulture and oenology, all the while doing some stages in Beaujolais and Chinon. During this time, they were also searching for the right spot in the Loire to set up their domaine. In the fall of 2018, they learned of 7 parcels of older vines that were for sale on a beautiful terroir in Beaumont-en-Véron, and with the help of two dozen friends and relatives they managed to source enough funds to purchase the parcels by the spring of 2019. In 2020, the completed their first vintage and launched the domaine with one wine, Le Pérou.
Today, Valentin and Marie are organically farming 10 hectares of vines, 9 hectares of Cabernet Franc and a small 0.8 hectare parcel of Chenin Blanc. The majority of their parcels are in the commune of Beaumont-en-Véron, with two small parcels in Chinon.
After having started with one wine in 2020, by the 2023 vintage, the domaine now has an ambitious range of 6 cuvée parcellaires of Cabernet Franc from across their parcels, all with the intension to showcase the terroir in the finished wine. This post features the cuvée Les Moulins de Beau Puy, which is from one of their lieux-dits in Beaumont-en-Véron.
This commune is situated on the north side, or the right bank, of the Vienne River. It is bordered to the east by the commune of Chinon, and to the west of the commune of Savigny-en-Véron. Beaumont-en-Véron, along with Savigny-en-Véron, and the commune of Avoine to the north make up what is often referred to as the Véron Peninsula, which is defined by the meeting of the Vienne and Loire Rivers.
Because of the presence of a geological fault at Avoine, the viticultural landscape across Beaumont-en-Véron is very different from that of Savigny-en-Véron and Avoine, in that both of those communes are dominated by flat vineyards and deep alluvial soils over the a Cenomanian-era limestone bedrock.
In Beaumont-en-Véron, the landscape undulates gently east towards Chinon, and we will find vineyards with any number of exposures, with an elevation ranging from around 35m to 80m above sea level. This varied terrain and elevations gives way to two types of terroirs in the commune - alluvial soils and then tuffeau chalk-derived soils.
There are two different kinds of alluvial soils that date to the Quaternary era, which we can find in two different places. At lower elevations of about 35m asl close to the Vienne River we have the ancient river-derived alluvial soils that are deep, sandy-silt with gravels, and then at higher elevations on plateaus at 70 to 80m, we have deep, wind-deposited aeolian sands. This area is centralized in a little pocket just west of the Bois de Beaumont and also around the Puy des Ajoncs and another puy Les Galippes.
Then at elevations of about 50 to 70m above sea level we find the tuffeau-derived soils. These soils found on the gentle slopes that descend from the puys and higher plateaus and also in a pocket in the northern part of the commune, east of Avoine around the lieu-dit Les Picasses. These vineyards can have any number of exposures because of the undulating nature of the landscape, and we find both the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau and Middle Turonian white tuffeau depending on the lieu-dit and parcel. In terms of the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau, we also find pockets of millarges in Beaumont-en-Véron, which are very fine, limestone-derived sand. In terms of topsoil across this area, the topsoils are more shallow and we generally find a higher proportion of clay in the topsoil as well.
So this wine is coming from 2.5 hectares of vines from the lieu-dit Les Moulins de Beau Puy, and as the name would suggest, we are in an area close to the higher elevation plateau. The vines are situated on a gentle north facing slope, actually the slope faces Les Picasses, which is about 600m to the north. In terms of soil, we have about 30 to 50cm of topsoil depending on the parcel, and it has a slightly higher clay content in it, and this is over the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau chalk bedrock. The vines were planted between 1970 and 1986.
From a winemaking perspective, the fruit is hand-harvested and destemmed but not crushed. The fermentation is whole berry, in concrete with native yeasts, and the fermentation temperature reached a maximum of 28C. The total time on skins was about 3 weeks with very minimal by way of extractive techniques. Aging was in 25hl older wood casks for about 12 months.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Domaine des Frères
Appellation: Chinon
Commune: Beaumont-en-Véron
Lieux-Dits: Les Moulins de Beau Puy
Soils: 30-50cm of fine clayey-sands over the Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau chalk bedrock
Alcohol: 12.1%
