Decades ago, Charles Joguet had a great insight. In Burgundy, Pinot Noir has a thousand different expressions, each according to the slightest changes in soil composition, site orientation, and so on. The Burgundians celebrate this... Read More

Decades ago, Charles Joguet had a great insight. In Burgundy, Pinot Noir has a thousand different expressions, each according to the slightest changes in soil composition, site orientation, and so on. The Burgundians celebrate this with their complicated AOC system, where seemingly every different micro-terroir is entitled to put a different name on the bottle.

Joguet's insight was great but simple: Chinon is also a varietal wine—the grape is Cabernet Franc rather than Pinot—and it too has a myriad of different terroirs, all of which can subtly impact the expression of the grape. Joguet went on to identify a number of different terroirs and vineyard sites, and his domaine continues to produce a line-up of brilliant single-vineyard wines today.

Aurélien Revillot happens to be from Burgundy. At one point he even worked at the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti. He knows a thing or two about the nuances of terroir and how it can impact a varietal wine. He decided to bring this knowledge to the Loire Valley.

But rather than settle in Chinon, he moved to Bourgueil, the village just across the river that also makes wines exclusively from Cabernet Franc. He took up a job making the wines at the famous Domaine de la Chevalerie, one of a few pioneers in making the same kind of explorations of terroir that Joguet did across the river (Pierre Breton is another). Bourgueil, too, has a range of interesting terroirs—varied compositions of limestone and gravel, mostly—that produce different expressions of Cabernet Franc.

For a few vintages, now, Revillot has been taking this exploration to the next level at his own personal domaine. He has picked up a plot here, and a plot there, slowly cobbling together a rich tapestry of terroirs. He farms them biodynamically, and makes the wines with a Burgundian sensibility. While the Cabernet Francs from these parts have a reputation for sturdiness and structure, Revillot's wines are more floral, more pure, more Chambolle-like. They are lovely!