Château Yvonne, 2022 Saumur-Champigny 'La Folie'

No.47 | What's In My Glass

A couple weeks ago, I wrote a post highlighting some of the other soils/terroirs of the Paris Basin other than the Turonian tuffeau chalk, which has long been associated with some of the top vineyards and wines across the Central Loire. One of the most unique of these terroirs is the lacustrine (freshwater) limestone that we find in Saumur-Champigny but not in any of the other Cabernet Franc appellations (to my knowledge at least!) in the Central Loire. While there aren’t too many examples of wines that I know of that from this terroir specifically, I wanted to elaborate a bit on this terroir because it is truly a special part of the Saumur-Champigny appellation.

Dating to the Ludian age of the Eocene period (between 37.8 and 33.9 million years ago - denoted as e6b on the geological map below), this lacustrine limestone is found in the highest concentration around the hamlet of Champigny in the commune of Souzay-Champigny, with isolated outcroppings in central Dampierre-sur-Loire and a…