“One of the finest I have tasted from Saumur.“ - The Wine Advocate, 95 points

We are standing on the harbour wall, waving goodbye to affordable white Burgundy, as it sails away on a mega-yacht, clinking glasses with whooping tech bros chest-pumping on the pool deck. We will miss it, but as we turn our back to the sea, we notice a wine that has always been there, sitting quietly in our peripheral vision, not begging for attention, but waiting for us to realise that we’ve been chasing the wrong quarry for years. Its name is Saumur Blanc and we owe it a huge apology.

A recent trip to the Loire was a complete revelation to us, not walking the well-worn paths to Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, but via the less familiar appellations of Saumur, Jasnières and Anjou. It wasn’t a beauty pageant, there were a lot of wines that made little impression on us, but there were enough, maybe just 5% of those we tasted, which sent us scrabbling for and scribbling down superlatives, and this wine, from Domaine Frederic Mabileau, was the beauty pageant queen, even though it wasn’t a beauty pageant.

It displays the sort of striking mineral aromas on which you would have to spend at least £70.00 if it said ‘Burgundy’ on the label, and reminded us specifically of Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey’s Saint Aubin ‘Les Perrières’ and Domaine Leflaive’s Puligny-Montrachet ‘Folatières’, both of which similarly amplify the crushed limestone and smoky citrus flavours, which have wine lovers remortgaging their houses for.

I asked Lucia to send me a photo of her handwritten tasting-note and it read: “Awesome! Exciting – so much purity and energy. Gunflint, grapefruit, fireworks, citrus dust all within such an elegant frame. Pure and chiselled. Could get lost in the aromas.”

I compared it to my own: “Sweet grapefruit, flint, preserved lemon, cap gun, charred lime and light toast. Chalk/limestone impression too. Outstanding!”

It’s one of our finest discoveries of recent years, a wine that any lover of Meursault or Chassagne-Montrachet should put in their basket and we are proud to be the exclusive importer, shipping directly from the producer with no middleman, so the price only has our (modest!) margin between you and the Mabileau’s cellar door. The vines are celebrating their 50th birthday this year and have imbued the wine with astonishing energy and flavour intensity. It underwent a wild fermentation in barrel before aging for 2 years in French oak barrels, going through full malo. 12% alc. Drink now-2038.

Domaine Frederic Mabileau

Domaine Frederic Mabileau, based in St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, comes from a long line of family vignerons who have worked in wine since 1620. Frederic set up on his own in St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil in 1991, sharing winemaking facilities with his father Jean-Paul and taking over his father’s vines in 2003. Long wanting to make a Chenin Blanc, he found a small parcel on the limestone slopes of Le Puy Notre Dame in the Saumur appellation, which is where this wine comes from.

Press review:

The Wine Advocate(previous vintage): “The wine definitely needs a big glass and lots of time to release its characteristic chalky, ripe and elegant fruit notes with dashes of lemon juice that are at first covered by intense sur lie and oaky notes. Full-bodied, rich and very elegant on the thoroughly fresh and mineral palate, this is a highly complex and textural Chenin with fine tannins and a long, intense and impressive finish. The acidity is remarkably fine and perfectly interwoven with the chalkiness of this big but also refined and elegant wine whose evolvement in the bottle should be interesting to follow. White peach aromas populate the aftertaste, which adds a super sexiness to this long and salty Chenin that is one of the finest I have tasted from Saumur.“ 95 points

JancisRobinson.com (previous vintage): “Beautiful nose. Stunning, smoked-nectarine nose – this is PURE rocks. A dragon of a wine, hewn into a cliff, tastes like a mountain, tastes like a storm. Austere, precise and yet rugged. Wow, is this even ready to drink?? Jim Budd says that the 2007 vintage of this had filled out beautifully when he tasted it this year, so you're probably looking at this wine becoming more and more interesting over the next 10 to 15 years. Needs decanting and do NOT drink cold! Stony, so, so stony. Salt-pickled lemons. NB tasted a month later, after it had been sitting in our cellar tightly corked up, the overriding impression was its power. Don't underestimate this wine. If I were dispensing advice, I'd say buy a case of 12 and drink one bottle a year.” 17++ points

Decanter (previous vintage): “A complex combination of aromas emerge from the glass, encompassing toast, wet wool and white rice, with an oily, kerosene aroma lying underneath ripe apple and peach fruit. In the mouth the wine feels grippy, tense and energetic. It is lean and austere with crystal sharp acidity, but has a richness and ripeness to the fruit which brings balance.” 91 points