Domaine des Roches Neuves, 2019 Saumur-Champigny “La Marginale”
Cab Franc du Jour #142
The sixth generation in a long lineage of Bordeaux vignerons, Thierry Germain came to the Loire in the early 1990s and purchased the existing estate Domaine des Roches Neuves in 1991. At the time, the domaine was owned by Denis Duveau, who decided to sell following the devastating frost of 1991 that wiped out his entire crop. With a deep commitment to biodynamic viticulture and meticulous attention to detail in the cellar, Thierry has since built Domaine des Roches Neuves into one of the Loire Valley’s most admired estates, earning the respect of vignerons across France and beyond. Today, Thierry and his son Louis farm 28 hectares of vines, of which 26 hectares are Cabernet Franc, producing an exceptional range that includes five cuvées parcellaires, each communicating its terroir with remarkable clarity, energy, and balance.
The Commune of Dampierre-sur-Loire
Dampierre-sur-Loire is one of six communes in the Saumur-Champigny appellation that hugs the banks of the Loire River before stretching south into the heart of the appellation. The commune runs about 3km from north to south and roughly 2km from east to west. Its varied topography has exposed a diverse patchwork of soil textures and origins, making Dampierre-sur-Loire one of the most complex communes in the appellation to define from a terroir standpoint.
Two main areas of the commune are dominated by Turonian tuffeau chalk. The most prominent is in the north and northeast, where the commune borders Souzay-Champigny, and the other is in the southwestern portion around the hamlet of Chaîntres. Vineyards in these areas sit at elevations of around 45 to 60m with a variety of exposures depending on the specific site. The Middle Turonian tuffeau, known locally as craie verte, is the most common bedrock here, with occasional pockets of Upper Turonian yellow tuffeau. Topsoils are generally shallow, reaching bedrock within 100cm of the surface, with a silty, clayey-sand texture.
In the central and southern parts of the commune, vineyards sit at slightly higher elevations of around 60 to 85m, and the soils date to the Senonian age and Eocene epoch. These terroirs are more varied and harder to characterise, with a wide range of sands and clayey-sands mixed with flint or sandstone pebbles, and pockets of lacustrine limestone in places. Topsoil textures vary considerably across this zone, and the soils are generally much deeper than those found over the tuffeau. The undulating topography also means vineyards here can face in almost any direction.
While these details can seem like minutiae, they are worth understanding because they directly influence a vine’s access to water, its potential vigour and yield, the precocity of a given site, and ultimately the rate and degree of phenolic maturity in the grapes. For an estate like Domaine des Roches Neuves, these factors inevitably shape how each individual cuvée is approached in the cellar.
The Vineyard
La Marginale comes from about 2 hectares of vines just west of the hamlet of Chaîntres, in the lieu-dit Les Fosses de Chaîntres, which forms part of the larger historical sector of Les Dares extending into the neighbouring commune of Varrains. The parcels sit at around 44m above sea level with a very slight northwest orientation. What truly defines this cuvée, though, is the soil, and it is the soil that has also shaped the evolution of the winemaking over the decades. The profile here is unusually deep, reaching 2 to 3m in places, and clay-dominated throughout. A mixed clay-silt-sand topsoil gives way to a very clayey subsoil, with the Middle Turonian tuffeau, the craie verte, forming the bedrock below. The vines average around 45 years of age.
A Cuvée with History
La Marginale is one of the domaine’s most historic cuvées, first created by previous owner Denis Duveau with the 1989 vintage. Denis set out to make a wine that emulated Bordeaux: higher maturities and alcohols, a more interventionist approach to extraction, longer macerations, and extended élevage in 100% new oak. The cuvée was conceived as a direct challenge to the prevailing perception of Saumur-Champigny at the time, when the wines of the appellation were widely regarded as simple, early-drinking, and not particularly serious. Denis’s friend Charly Foucault of Clos Rougeard gave it the name La Marginale.
When Thierry took over the domaine with the 1992 vintage, he continued making the cuvée in much the same way Denis had. As he matured as a vigneron and deepened his understanding of his vines and soils, his approach gradually evolved, most notably with the élevage. He began dialling back on new oak in 2002, and by the 2005 vintage had abandoned it entirely. The vessels used for aging have also grown progressively larger over time, moving from mainly 300L and 500L barrels in the earlier years to the large foudres used today.
In the Cellar
The fruit is hand-harvested and sorted twice, once in the vineyard and again in the cellar, then fully destemmed without crushing. Fermentation takes place in large wooden vats with indigenous yeast, with the temperature kept around 20 to 25C. The approach to extraction is infusion, with only a gentle, periodic wetting of the cap. Total skin contact runs approximately 18 to 20 days, and no press wine is used in the finished cuvée. The free-run wine is then aged in 25hl oak foudres for around 12 months, with the objective of preserving the fruit and the sense of roundness that the deep clay soils bring to the finished wine.
Wine Details
Producer: Domaines des Roches Neuves (Thierry & Louis Germain)
Appellation: Saumur-Champigny
Commune: Dampierre-sur-Loire
Lieu-Dit: Les Fosses de Chaintre
Soil: upwards to 3m of clayey soils (topsoil and subsoil), over the Middle Turonian tuffeau chalk (craie verte)
Alcohol: 13.5%