Domaine des Frères, 2021 Chinon ‘Les Moulins de Beau Puy’
Cab Franc du Jour #130
The story of Domaine des Frères is not the multi-generation winemaking family narrative so commonly encountered in France. In 2016, after a brief stint working in the office of his family’s auto mechanic shop in Beaumont-en-Véron, Valentin Bruneau and his wife Marie decided that a life as vignerons was where their hearts truly belonged.
They moved to Mâcon so that Valentin could study viticulture and oenology, doing stages in Beaujolais and Chinon along the way, all while searching for the right place in the Loire to establish their domaine. In the fall of 2018, they learned of seven parcels of older vines for sale on a beautiful terroir in Beaumont-en-Véron, and with the help of two dozen friends and family members they managed to raise enough funds to purchase the parcels by spring 2019. They completed their first vintage in 2020 and launched the domaine with a single wine, Le Pérou.
Today, Valentin and Marie organically farm 10 hectares of vines, comprising 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. Having started with one wine in 2020, the domaine had grown by the 2023 vintage to an ambitious range of six cuvées parcellaires of Cabernet Franc, each intended to express the terroir of a specific parcel. This post features Les Moulins de Beau Puy, sourced from one of their lieux-dits in Beaumont-en-Véron.
The Commune of Beaumont-en-Véron
The commune of Beaumont-en-Véron sits on the north side, or right bank, of the Vienne River, bordered to the east by Chinon and to the west by Savigny-en-Véron. Together with Savigny-en-Véron and the commune of Avoine to the north, Beaumont-en-Véron forms what is commonly referred to as the Véron Peninsula, defined by the confluence of the Vienne and Loire Rivers.
A geological fault at Avoine creates a sharp contrast between Beaumont-en-Véron and its neighbours to the west and north. Both Savigny-en-Véron and Avoine are dominated by flat vineyards and deep alluvial soils over a Cenomanian-era limestone bedrock, while Beaumont-en-Véron’s landscape undulates gently eastward toward Chinon, with vineyards facing any number of directions at elevations ranging from around 35 to 80m above sea level.
This varied terrain gives rise to two distinct terroir types within the commune. The first is alluvial, appearing in two forms from the Quaternary era: at lower elevations of around 35m above sea level, close to the Vienne, deep sandy-silt soils with gravels of ancient river origin; and at higher elevations of 70 to 80m on certain plateaus, deep aeolian sands deposited by wind over millennia, concentrated in a pocket just west of the Bois de Beaumont and around the Puy des Ajoncs and Les Galippes.
The second terroir type is tuffeau-derived, found at elevations of roughly 50 to 70m above sea level on the gentle slopes descending from the higher plateaus and puys, as well as in a pocket in the northern part of the commune east of Avoine around the lieu-dit Les Picasses. The undulating landscape means these vineyards can face in almost any direction, and both Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau and Middle Turonian white tuffeau are found here depending on the lieu-dit and parcel. Pockets of millarges, a very fine limestone-derived sand, are also found in association with the yellow tuffeau in Beaumont-en-Véron. Across this tuffeau zone, topsoils are generally shallow and carry a higher proportion of clay.
The Vineyard
As the name suggests, this lieu-dit is located close to the higher-elevation plateau. The wine is sourced from 2.5 hectares of vines situated on a gentle north-facing slope that looks out toward Les Picasses, roughly 600m to the north. The topsoil is 30 to 50cm deep depending on the parcel, with a slightly elevated clay content, over a bedrock of Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau chalk. The vines were planted between 1970 and 1986.
In the Cellar
The fruit is hand-harvested, destemmed but not crushed, and fermented as whole berries in concrete with native yeasts, reaching a maximum fermentation temperature of 28C. Total skin contact was approximately three weeks, with very minimal extraction throughout. The wine was then aged in older 25hl wood casks for around 12 months.
Wine Details
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%