Almost no one has been more important in keeping the region of Chinon at the forefront than Charles Joguet. He abandoned his blossoming career as an artist in Paris to return to the family farm in 1957 when the family asked. He brought with him a lot of youthful enthusiasm and the naivety to believe he could challenge the centuries-old status quo and make a living bottling his own wines instead of selling his grapes each vintage to the local co-op as was the norm here.

The Joguet family legacy included outstanding vineyard land well-located between the Loire and Vienne Rivers, with their finest found on the left bank of the Vienne, just outside Chinon. These vineyards have enjoyed reputations for producing great wines since before the Renaissance or even the Middle Ages. Charles studied and identified the variations of the soils in each of these unique sites and determined they were distinctive enough to be regarded as premier cru or grand cru quality, if such designations had existed. He was the first in the region, then, to bottle each of these individual parcels separately, showing to the world that Chinon could produce wines of truly unique quality; now, Joguet’s wines have become reference points for the entire region. Charles has since retired passing the baton to young and talented Kevin Fontaine who, closely adhering to the tradition of Charles, bottles a stunning nine different cuvées, handling each one as a unique terroir and microclimate.

Traditionally, the most elegant and polished of the nine wines is the iconic Les Varennes du Grand Clos, a four-hectare, organically farmed vineyard with vines planted in 1962 and 1976. 2021 produced a particularly refined version of Varennes du Grand Clos as it was a cooler harvest, much cooler than some of the most recent that produced heavier, less-polished wines. This Cab Franc is filled with hard-to-pin-down floral notes with raspberry pastille, tobacco and Earl Grey tea essences on a mid-weight palate that feels just right. Succulent and savory, at nearly five years past the harvest, it’s drinking perfectly.