Domaine de la Chanteleuserie Bourgueil Cuvee Beauvais Cabernet Franc 2023 -750ml

Winery Notes

Just outside of the village of Benais, in the heart of the Touraine, sits the lovely Domaine de la Chanteleuserie. This “place where the larks sing,” as the name means, is perched on a limestone plateau in a peaceful landscape near the banks of the Loire. The Boucard family manages this domaine and produces two reds from Bourgueil, the Loire Valley appellation twenty minutes north of—and across the Loire River from—Chinon. Like Chinon, Bourgueil is home to many expressions of world-class Cabernet Franc.
     In contrast to the softer, more fruit-forward Bourgueils grown near the sandy, alluvial riverbanks—the Boucards’ Alouettes bottling, for example—the Beauvais shows Cabernet Franc’s more serious, structured, and age-worthy side. This largely comes down to terroir: the Beauvais vines are planted in hillside tuffeau, a chalky, porous limestone that retains water especially well and keeps the old vines hydrated through all kinds of conditions. This bottling, reminiscent of crushed blackberries, black cherries, and graphite, is proof that this is among the top terroirs for this grape anywhere.

—Anthony Lynch