Domaine des Roches Neuves, 2020 Saumur-Champigny “Franc de Pied”
Thierry Germain of Domaine des Roches Neuves is one of the elite wine-growers in Saumur-Champigny. Thierry is biodynamically farming 28 hectares of vines, of which about 26 hectares are planted with Cabernet Franc. He is very meticulous and thoughtful with his approach in the vineyard and cellar, and when you spend a bit of time with him, you really get the sense that it is as if he knows and understands intimately each individual vine at the domaine.
In addition to his domaine wine and the cuvée “Roche,” which are blends from multiple parcels, the domaine also produces several cuvées parcellaires, each of which is intended to communicate the terroir through the finished wine. Today I wanted to look at one of my all time favourite wines from Thierry's range, the Franc de Pied. This wine is close to my heart for a few reasons. Firstly, this wine was the first wine from the domaine that I tried, likely back in 2015 or 2016. Also, this wine is from ungrafted Cabernet Franc vines, which is extremely rare in the Loire Valley.
I actually did a video on this wine nearly 3 years ago, in the very early days of Cab Franc Chronicles, and my understanding of the Saumur-Champigny appellation and terroirs, this parcel, Thierry's approach, and really Cabernet Franc in general, has grown exponentially since then, so I thought that it was worth revisiting this cuvée in a lot more detail.
This wine is coming from a tiny plot of vines in the commune of Saumur in Saumur-Champigny. This commune is the furthest west of the 6 communes that hug the bank of the Loire River in the Saumur-Champigny appellation. While this is the largest commune in terms of square kilometres, stretching about 7km from north to south on both sides of the Loire and about 9.5km from east to west on the south side of the Loire River, the area for viticulture is quite small because we have the town of Saumur taking up the majority of the commune area.
The majority of the vineyards, probably around 75% or so, are clustered in a small area in the far eastern part of the commune, east of the town of Saumur itself, stretching about a little over a kilometre east to the border of Dampierre-sur-Loire. These vineyards sit at elevations of around 68m to 85m above sea level, and for the most part the topography here is quite flat.
In terms of soils, with the exception of a small area in the northeastern corner here in the eastern part of the commune where we find the Turonian tuffeau chalk, almost all of the vineyards here, and actually in the rest of the Saumur commune for that matter, are on soils that date to the Senonain age or the Eocene epoch, specifically the Bartonian and Lutian ages. These are mostly sandy-clays and clayey-sands that can have sandstone, quartz or flint pebbles throughout, with some parcels having more the influence of lacustrine limestone. The soils vary widely in depth and texture from lieu-dit to lieu-dit and even parcel to parcel.
Drilling down further, the Franc de Pied is coming from a tiny parcel, only 0.2 hectares, of ungrafted vines, that is Cabernet Franc on its own roots. So in order for vitis vinifera vines to survive in Europe on its own roots with succumbing to phylloxera, we need very deep sandy soils. And indeed, that is exactly what we have in this block. These soils here are Senonian-era sands mixed with flint and sandstone pebbles, and there is about 6m of pure sand that these vines are planted in. The vines were planted in 2004, and they were planted at a high density of 10,000 vines per hectare. The vines are also trained using an échalas system, which is individually staked vines, like you would typically see on steep slopes in the Rhône or the Mosel.
I had the chance to visit this block with Thierry in the spring of 2022, and it was a fascinating spot to walk through. The soils are extremely sandy, almost as if you were walking on a beach. And when I asked Thierry about his choice of vine training for these vines, he simply said that he really loves Northern Rhône Syrah and it was his nod to that region.
From a winemaking perspective, what is important to note right off the top is that Thierry ferments his Franc de Pied generally with some percentage of whole cluster, at least in more recent vintages. So the fruit is hand harvested, and in the case of the 2020 vintage, 90% of the fruit was fermented whole cluster in oval vats using indigenous yeast at a low temperature, around 16 to 22C. This is to capture the aromas without extracting any bitter tannins. The total time on skins is around 8 to 10 days. And then aging is in foudre for around 12 months before bottling.
Key wine wine facts below:
Producer: Domaine des Roches Neuves (Thierry Germain)
Appellation: Saumur-Champigny
Commune: Saumur
Lieux-Dits: Les Pentes
Soils: 6m of Senonian-era sand with flint and sandstone pebbles
Alcohol: 13.5%
