Domaine Jean-Maurice Raffault

The first parcel of vines was bought by Mathurin Bottreau in 1693. Fourteen generations have followed since. The house is in Savigny-en-Véron, within Chinon.

Today there are fifty hectares spread across seven communes, and that is where their approach shows: instead of blending everything into one wine, they separate each cuvée by parcel and by soil type.

The cabernet franc averages thirty-five years, with ten hectares reaching fifty. In white they work chenin, and they make rosé as well.

The wines are aged in barrel inside three troglodyte cellars: galleries dug into the tuffeau, the soft Loire limestone that was quarried for centuries to build the châteaux of the area and left the hillsides riddled with caves.

Rodolphe Raffault finished his oenology studies in Dijon in 1997 and took over from his father, Jean-Maurice, in 2009. The conversion to organic began with him.