2018 Domaine de la Chanteleuserie Cuvee Beauvais Bourgueil Loire Valley 750 ml

In the little Loire village of Benais, Domaine de la Chanteleuserie has elevated Cabernet Franc to its greatest expression, and done it very quietly. 

We’re here to be a little bit louder. 

Since we discovered the 2018 Cuvée Beauvais by way of legendary importer Kermit Lynch, we’ve been angling to get an allocation for Wine Access members. There’s hardly enough to go around, but this is a bottle that deserves a bright spotlight. 

Lovers of Bordeaux blends and spicy reds should be all over this bottle—the way our Master of Wine Vanessa Conlin is. “I always have a Loire Valley Cab Franc like this on hand,” she told us while swirling the Cuvée Beauvais in her glass. “This wine is so perfumed and elegant—I really can’t ever get enough of it. It's lighter-bodied, and the beautiful fine-grained tannins make it extremely versatile.” 

The Boucard family’s Cuvée Beauvais is much more than versatile. Grown on 50-year-old vines planted in the chalky hillside limestone known as tuffeau, this wine has real power—the kind of broad structure, mineral depth, and ageworthiness that you rarely find in Cabernet Franc, and is rarer still in under-$25 bottlings. It’s a bottle that plays with big-boy reds from all across the globe, showing why Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate wrote that Domaine de la Chanteleuserie’s Bourgueil offerings deliver “downright ridiculous value.”

Thierry Boucard, who is the seventh generation of his family to steward Domaine de la Chanteleuserie, knows exactly how to coax the best from his vines in Bourgueil, the bucolic countryside appellation on the northern bank of the Loire River. Just 20 minutes from Chinon, Bourgueil is known for producing some of the greatest Cabernet Franc in the world, and Domaine de la Chanteleuserie’s estate vineyard is second to none. 

Planted in 1971, the Boucards’ tiny ten-acre vineyard is perfectly suited to Cabernet Franc. Ample sunshine from the south-facing exposure yields deep and ripe fruit tones to complement Cabernet Franc’s natural perfume. The porous tuffeau retains water reserves that are vital for old-vine Cabernet Franc while also adding structured brawn. And despite the vineyard's small size, Boucard chooses to keep yields low to further improve concentration and quality. 

As the 2018 shows, Thierry Boucard knows exactly what he’s doing. Offering up a gorgeously aromatic nose of black cherry, cranberry, violet, and tea leaf, the wine bursts with mouthwatering vibrancy. The acidity draws the brooding dark fruits into sharp focus, while notes of fresh thyme, garrigue, and tobacco leaf unfold in generous waves, all the way through to the stony mineral finish. From top to bottom, the 2018 Cuvée Beauvais is absolutely triumphant, delivering what Wine Advocate hailed as “considerable charm for a modest price.”