Description
The Legrand family has been rooted in Saumur-Champigny for centuries, with written records of their winegrowing activity dating back to the 17th century. Today, Clotilde Legrand represents the first generation of women at the helm, carrying forward this historic estate’s focus on Cabernet Franc through careful parcel selection, hand-harvesting, and traditional cellar work that emphasizes purity and typicity of the appellation.
Clotilde Legrand farms her estate Cabernet Franc vineyards under a sustainable approach often described in France as agriculture raisonnée (reasoned/sustainable agriculture), which focuses on reducing chemical inputs and intervening only when necessary to protect the vines and environment. While the domaine is not certified organic, they underline low-intervention choices in the cellar—manual harvesting, plot-by-plot work, and fermentations without added sulfites—with total SO₂ levels kept well below even organic thresholds, all of which dovetails with Saumur-Champigny’s broader push toward biodiversity programs, hedgerow planting, and environmentally respectful viticulture across the appellation.
The 2017 Saumur-Champigny “La Chaintrée” is a deeply colored, oak-raised Cabernet Franc offering a ripe core of blackcurrant and blackberry layered with blueberry, subtle pine, dried herbs, and gentle spice from long aging in seasoned French barrels. The palate is full yet poised, with fresh acidity, polished tannins, and a long, sapid finish that carries dark berry fruit, graphite, and foresty, savory nuances, making it a refined, ready-to-drink expression that still has the structure to hold a few more years in bottle.
