Arnaud Lambert, 2022 Saumur Rouge 'Mazurique'

No.28 | What's In My Glass

In my newsletter last week, I wrote about the Yannick Amirault, 2022 Bourgueil ‘Côte 50’ - a wine that I have had quite a lot of experience with across vintages, and had tasted the 2022 vintage in particular a handful of times over a 12-month period. In the post, I wanted to highlight how the wine had evolved, shed some of its baby fat, and begun to emerge into a new phase of its life revealing with a bit more clarity the wine’s sense of place.

Staying on the 2022 vintage theme, this week I opened the more recently released Domaine Arnaud Lambert 2022 Saumur Rouge ‘Mazurique.’ Arnaud Lambert is one of my favourite winemakers and I have learned so much about Cabernet Franc and its ability to showcase terroir through our tastings and discussions. Arnaud is honest, forthcoming, and always extremely generous with his time. His cuvée Mazurique (formerly called Clos Mazurique) is without a doubt the cuvée of his I have enjoyed the most over the years, and it remains one of the tried-and-true examples of early-drinking Saumur Rouge that I taste and recommend often.

Arnaud Lambert’s Mazurique is coming from a 3.7-hectare parcel of on average 40-year-old vines in Brézé, quite possibly one of the Loire’s most famous wine villages. Located in the Saumur AOP, the heart of the viticultural area of Brézé encircles the peak of the “Brézé hill,” which is located just east of the Château de Brézé. Viticulturally-speaking, this commune is one of the most complex in the region to define in terms of terroir with a veritable hodgepodge of exposures and elevations, and soil origins, depths and textures.**

The parcels for Mazurique are in a single lieu-dit in the southwest part of Brézé, and while the parcels are on a south-facing slope, this is a decidedly cooler site for Cabernet Franc, and, for me, this is one of the key elements that defines the character in this wine. Regardless of vintage, Mazurique presents in a very “cool,” almost brisk, way. As if you were walking through a boreal forest in early spring, surrounded by spruce and fir trees with the odd patch of snow here and there that has yet to melt. There is a pristine nature about the wine, and it always exhibits a great deal of clarity and freshness in the glass.

Mazurique L: thermal image of Brézé | R: underlying geology of Brézé

The other element that defines Mazurique is the soils. The parcels have about 50cm of a predominantly clayey topsoil (argilo-limoneuse is about 40% clay content) over the Middle Turonian white tuffeau chalk, and then lots of stones, about 50% of stones in the topsoil. Since taking over the domaine on his own in 2011, Arnaud has gone to great lengths to understand his vines and soils, and how to best work with the fruit to communicate that sense of place in the glass. This combination of clay and stones brings a veritable one-two punch of power and structure to the wine that Arnaud has to temper by way of very short macerations (only about 8 days total). This approach gives the cuvée a bit more juiciness and sucrosity on the palate, helping to balance the firmer, sometimes more strict tannins, while still allowing for depth and persistence.

The cool site combined with shallow, stony, clayey topsoil means that even the warmest years, Mazurique can be a bit tight and austere on release, benefiting from a little bit of time in the bottle, or a generous decant prior to enjoying. Compared to Arnaud’s other early-drinking cuvée, ‘Terres Rouges’ from parcels in Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg in Saumur-Champigny, which is vinified the same way as Mazurique (short maceration, fermented in a combination of stainless steel and concrete), it is always a bit more open and friendlier in its youth than Mazurique.

When I opened the 2022 Mazurique this week, it was initially quite tight and closed, so after having a glass, I put the cork back in the bottle and decided to revisit it the following day. This isn’t a practical approach for most people, so a couple hours in a decanter will do the wine wonders and make it more companionable at this stage in its life. The following day the wine showed all of the textbook “Mazurique” aromas and energies that I’ve fallen in love with over the years and come through in the glass each and every vintage.

On the nose, the wine was very open and pure, and with notes of small, sweet-tart red fruits like raspberry, cranberry juice, and morello cherry, which were complemented by a distinct forest-y edge with notes of evergreen (fir, spruce), lemon thyme and sage. There is a lovely perfume (violets) on the nose, and a real sense of precision, clarity and depth to the aromatic profile. On the palate, the acidity is mouth-watering and persistent, and the fruits carry forward beautifully on the palate, with a delicate, exotically-spiced profile reminiscent of sumac, cardamon and black pepper. The tannins are firm, densely-packed with a crushed velvet texture and a slight chewiness on the finish. Medium-bodied, tactile, not fleshy per se, but there is a nice plushness to the fruit that I think showcases the solaire nature of the vintage. While richly textured, the wine still remains elegant, lifted and agile. This wine will reward with a bit more time in the bottle, but in its youth and with a good decant, it is a terrific introduction to Arnaud Lambert’s approach with Cabernet Franc, which is all about finesse, clarity, precision, and letting the fruit be a mirror for the terroir in the purest way possible.

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**While I could’ve done so here, providing a detailed overview of the terroirs of Brézé is an endeavour worthy of its own post, so I will tackle that in a future newsletter. In the meantime, below are some resources worthy of reading/watching/listening for those that are interested in diving a bit deeper:

• Ted Vance’s post “The Greatest Forgotten Hill” (also the source of the thermal image used above)

• My video on Arnaud Lambert’s 2011 Saumur Rouge ‘Clos de l’Étoile’

• Levi Dalton’s 2017 interview with Arnaud Lambert from his podcast “I’ll Drink To That”