Domaine du Bel Air Bourgueil Les Vingt Lieux Dits 2021

Certified Organic (Ecocert)

An assemblage from numerous parcels of vines planted on clay and silty soils ('no limestone'), on south-facing slopes. The vines are aged 40 years on average. The fruit is vinified in cuves, with what Pierre regards as 'a gentle extraction', although in truth it lasts for 15 to 18 days, with regular pumping over and pigeage. The élevage is in a mix of third-fill and fourth-fill barrels and demi-muids, for 12 months. No SO2 added during elevage with a small safe amount at bottling. Dark colour and richness of fruit on the nose and palate this shows very attractive deep rich aromas with perfect clarity and balance on the palate. Made as an earlier drinking style this is very hedonistic and gives great joy already.

Pierre and Rodolphe Gauthier make some of the most sophisticated and age-worthy Cabernet Franc in the Loire, so this is scandalously good value. The 2021 is a delicate, polished rendition that focuses on the mineral side of Les Vingt. I love the peppery counterpoint to the glossy red fruit. It's deliciously moreish already, and further complexity will emerge with age. 

'The 2021 Les Vingt Lieux Dits is sourced from 20 different parcels on the clay mid-slopes of Bourgueil. It is a young, juicy, red-fruited style. It's light in body but has a bit of flesh on the mid-palate holding that line of acidity. This is perfect for early drinking, akin to a good Beaujolais.' 88 points, Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous, December 2023.

Run by father and son Pierre and Rodolphe Gauthier, this 20 ha estate is based in Benais which lies to the east of the town of Bourgueil. Here the village is situated on a limestone plateau as distinct from the gravel soils which Bourgueil mostly finds itself on. The limestone plateau sits a little higher than the sand and gravel soils which are located close to the Loire River. It is arguably the combination of clay and limestone which give wines of Benais, and other areas of Bourgueil, more structure and ageing potential. There is of course even more limestone below the sand and gravel of the Loire River, this is usually chalk of the Lower Turonian as distinct to the Upper or Middle Turonian limestone more typical of Benais.

At any rate the wines of Benais on the middle to upper slopes have great ageing potential, indeed some decades ago I imported the wines of J-P Druet whose wines are still showing beautifully even though his estate has since been sold and split up. Part of his holding in Grand Mont now makes up a small portion of the Gauthier family holding in this excellent vineyard.

Perhaps the most notable part of this estate is the work in the vineyards which has been certified organic since 2000. There are no plans to buy or expand the family vineyard holdings as Pierre feels the current 18 ha are ideal to enable them to work the vines themselves by hand. They plow the soil, maintain a cover crop between vineyard rows, use bud-pruning and green harvests to limit their yields to under 40 hl/ha, and thin the canopy three weeks before harvesting. This level of attention to detail is part of the secret to their success. Pierre’s father was the last person in the village to still plow the vineyards by horse swapping the horse for tractor in 1985.

All the fruit is picked by hand, and after being transported to the cellars above Benais it is destemmed and sorted over a table de tri manned by four people led by Rodolphe. Thereafter the vinification and the style depends on the cuvée in question. All wines are vinified with natural yeast with elevage with NO SO2 (small amount added at bottling) and NO press wine added for any of the wines. These wines are utterly distinctive with remarkable purity and texture showing ample fruit without any heaviness making these wines seem weightless in the mouth making them incredibly moreish and remarkably fine.

'Pierre Gauthier represents the fourth generation to till the land of the family’s holdings in Benais. In the traditional Ligérian manner Pierre’s parents were polyculturalists, looking after cattle, cereals, asparagus and vines. During his parents’ time they began to concentrate on the vines, reducing the area of land dedicated to asparagus, while they expanded the vineyard. Pierre started working alongside his parents in 1979, when he was 14 years old. He recalls that at the time his father still worked the vines in a very traditional manner, as evinced by him having been the last in the village to still own a horse.

Today Pierre Gauthier has been working on the domaine for about forty years, and for about twenty of these the domaine has been organic, with certification. Today he is assisted by his son Rodolphe, who returned home after finishing his studies at Montreuil-Bellay.

Pierre and Rodolphe have approximately 20 hectares of vines. Pierre believes this is the maximum they can manage while continuing to give the wines the attention they deserve, his self-stated philosophy being to look after his vines “as if they were a garden”. Of these parcels, many are blended together to produce the domaine cuvée, but a handful are vinified apart. These include parcels of vines in noteworthy lieux-dits including Les Marsaules, where the Gauthiers have 3 hectares, and in Le Grand Mont, where they have 1.3 hectares. And, of course, there is the Clos Nouveau.

The Clos Nouveau, as already noted in my history of the estate, originated with the nearby Château de Benais, the two separated at the time of the French Revolution. Today the Clos Nouveau is in the possession of Pierre Gauthier, who purchased it in 2005, making this family only the third owners of this small vineyard since the Revolution. It was not in perfect condition and required some replanting, Pierre replacing at least 25% of the vines. The work meant that he made no wine in 2006, his first vintage here being 2007. These days the vineyard, all 1.2 hectares of it, surrounded by many espalier-trained fruit trees along the walls, is in great condition.'
Chris Kissack, The Wine Doctor.