France

94 Points! The 2020 Franc de Pied is incredibly reductive when it was first opened and needed a lot of time and a swirl with a copper coin. If you can be patient ( 5 minutes with a penny in your glass, or your currency’s equivalent), It’s worth the wait. It reveals itself to be a richly fruited, savory style that fills the mouth with a balloon of chalky silkiness. The limestone element really shows itself on the long finish grained texture and sinew. As you’d hope from Saumyr-Champigny, there’s no sense of weight or heft. Detectable now but has the structure to develop over the coming two decades. - Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous

Giraudière’s Saumur Blanc “L'Ardillon de Brézé” is Chenin Blanc from vines planted in Brézé in 1985, 2003, and 2009, at 75 meters of altitude on a gentle slope facing north-south and east-west, depending on the parcel. The topsoil is deep clay with limestone and flint rock on limestone bedrock. Saumur Blanc “L'Ardillon de Brézé” is fermented in barrels at a maximum of 17°C and aged for 12 months before bottling.

Les Clos Lyzières comes from a choice parcel of Cabernet Franc vines just outside the village of Varrains and adjacent to the famous Poyeux vineyard. Vinified and aged entirely in concrete vat. The objective: to showcase the most pure expression of fruit from these soils.

92 Points! The 2017 Saumur Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg Coulée de St-Cyr exhibits an intense white-golden color along with a deep, fresh and refined bouquet of lemon juice, iodine and limestone along with ripe domestic and even some tropical fruit aromas intertwined with yeasty notes and a lovely oaky and honeyed spiciness that is very well integrated. Full-bodied, pure and persistently salty on the clear and dry palate, this is a dense, tightly structured, refreshing, mineral and straightforward Chenin with very fine tannins and an iodine finish. A characterful wine that currently still lacks the flesh to soften the structural bones. Tasted in April 2021. - Stephan Reinhardt, robertparker.com