Clos Rougeard: Loire’s top Cabernet Francs?

With a history of eight generations under the Foucault brothers, establishing its reputation as the best producer of Cabernet Franc (not to mention Chenin Blanc) in the Loire, it created a shock wave when Clos Rougeard was sold to the Bouygues family in 2017.

What has changed since then, and what has stayed the same?

Scroll down for the most recent tasting notes for Clos Rougeard wines

Building the future: a new winery under way

The wines of Clos Rougeard used to be made in the cramped cellars under the family house in Chacé, until the brothers found a new site nearby in 2010, with 1km of underground cellars.

Now a new building is being completed, with a rather ornate exterior contrasting with the old quarters. It appears large relative to the domaine, but technical director Jacques-Antoine Toublanc says the capacity of the building matches the vineyard area. ‘We could manage 2ha more,’ he says. ‘Perhaps if they became available in Les Poyeux.’

Construction has been continuing between winemaking seasons, but from 2022, Clos Rougeard wines will be made in a new gravity-fed winery, equipped with 17 new concrete fermenters, holding 60hl-70hl. Each can serve 1ha of picked grapes; 14 tanks are for red, three tanks are for white. Previously the wine was made in 200-hectolitre fermenters.

Emphasis on long ageing and oak use

The reds age for 24 months: Le Clos in used barriques and Les Poyeux in one-year-old barriques, sourced from first growths in Bordeaux. Le Bourg ages in 90% new barriques, from oak sourced in the Loire. Jacques-Antoine believes oak has a crucial influence, and is extremely fussy about the barriques used.

‘The source of the oak, the temperature of toasting, and the duration of toasting are all important,’ he says. His criterion for judging barrel preparation is the smell of the oak as it is being toasted.

All cuvées offer an unmistakable impression of purity, with a smooth generosity to each wine. Le Clos is elegant and pure, Les Poyeux the crystalline essence of Cabernet Franc, and Le Bourg tighter with higher acidity and tannins, needing more time.

A change in direction for the white?

With 20% new oak, the white Le Brézé offers a wonderfully savoury impression of Chenin Blanc, with a steely minerality reminiscent of Puligny-Montrachet when young. As it ages, that minerality turns more austere, so I would enjoy it in the first decade. But there may now be a change coming.

‘In red winemaking, we are following exactly the Foucaults, but for the whites the wine could be a little lactic. The brothers used to pick late. Nady always said you should find everything from citrus to over-ripe in Brézé. Some years it was too heavy for me. I’m not happy to make Burgundy, I want to get the typicity of Chenin, I want freshness. This is the new style, I would say,’ Toublanc says as we taste the 2019, which shows an exceptional sense of tension.

The 2018, from a warmer year, is a halfway house between the new, fresher style and the older, more Burgundian style.

The style of Clos Rougeard, ‘has to be ripe, but it has to have freshness on the palate at the same time,’ says Toublanc.

Elegance over power might well be the motto of the domain. It’s in good hands.

Clos Rougeard’s history and terroir

Copy by Yohan Castaing

Clos Rougeard has always been a truly exceptional estate in the Saumur-Champigny appellation of the Loire.

Whereas most winemakers in Saumur-Champigny often practised a high-yield approach to viticulture, choosing quantity over quality, the Foucault brothers marched to the beat of a very different drum from 1969 to 2015.

Charly and Nady made very distinctive, quality-driven wines of remarkable freshness and silkiness. The brothers practised an ‘haute couture’ type of viticulture and winemaking, based on small yields, native yeasts and long cellar-ageing.

This approach made their 10ha domain, planted with Cabernet Franc except for 1ha of Chenin Blanc, the unquestionable top-tier benchmark for the appellation. Their long-lived wines could easily age up to two decades.

Sadly Charly passed away in December 2015, and Nady sold Clos Rougeard in 2017 to French entrepreneurs, Martin and Olivier Bouygues, who also own Château Montrose in Bordeaux.

The terroir

The vines are planted on a limestone plateau overlooking the Loire. According to Jacques-Antoine Toublanc there is 30cm of topsoil at most, which allows the roots to plunge into the tuffeau, the limestone bedrock typical of Saumur-Champigny.

Of the two main vineyards, Les Poyeux and Le Bourg, the former has the reputation of producing the most accessible wine. It has sandier soils, albeit on a clay-limestone base.

Les Poyeux is located on a 2.5ha parcel, which makes it more than twice the size of the 1ha of vines in Le Bourg. It’s a well-ventilated site that produces healthy grapes resulting in wines that are more fruit-forward and less concentrated.

As for Le Bourg, the grapes are sourced from four tiny plots on limestone soil with some deep clay on which the grapes ripen impeccably. Le Clos is sourced from 14 small plots that comprise a total of 4ha.

As for the 1ha Brezé parcel, its vocation is for white wine thanks to its south-facing site on calcareous limestone, ideal for Chenin Blanc. Clos Rougeard’s Brezé white has become a cult wine, but another rarity is the Côteau de Saumur sweet wine, only produced in exceptional vintages such as 2018. The previously released vintage was 2003.

Tasting notes and scores for Clos Rougeard wines:

Vintages 2017-2019: tasting notes and scores from Benjamin Lewin MW

Vintages 2014-2016: tasting notes and scores from Yohan Castaing

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