2019 Le Clos Lyzières, Saumur-Champigny, Dominique Joseph

This a hugely seductive Cab Franc, with scintillating aromas of ripe red fruit, flowers and dried herbs, and a subtle rusty note characteristic, Pélo tells us, of the Clos (SS-E facing, with clay-limestone). Planted in the early-fifties, the vines here are the estate’s oldest, and yield a small crop of concentrated berries – and the wine benefits from a leisurely maturation of one year in concrete tank and a further year in bottle prior to release. In his quite brilliant The New French Wines, Jon Bonné describes Les Clos Lyzières as a ‘hidden gem.’