2005 - Saumur-Champigny Bourg, Clos Rougeard

From a single hectare of ancient vines, the Foucaults’ 2005 Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg – from new barriques, a dozen of those from local oak dried for six years – displays roasted meat, black truffles, toasted walnut, cassis, and salt spray in the nose. Amazingly deep, meaty, and fruited with an almost bitter blackness of fruit skin intensity, this expansive, rich, doughy-textured red resonates with gushing juiciness, marrowy meatiness, explosive sweet florality, deep, piquant nuttiness, and aromatic wood notes. Like all Foucault wines, it will go straight to bottle by gravity and I don’t think much can go wrong at this point! Importer: Louis/Dressner Selections, New York, NY; tel. (212) 334-8191

The 2005 Saumur-Champigny Le Bourg is very pure and comely on the nose, with breezy red cherries commingling with cranberry and subtle licorice aromas. It becomes increasingly floral with aeration. The palate is underpinned by a keen thread of acidity, although there is a patina of new oak that still needs to be assimilated. Nonetheless, I admire its vibrancy, and the 2005 should last another 10 to 20 years. Tasted at the Clos Rougeard retrospective at Noble Rot, London.