2024 Chai de La Dive Saumur Rouge

Freshly-tilled earth, tobacco, dark berry, lavender — and with 30 minutes in the glass, something opens up: raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, all threaded through with clay-limestone minerality and silky pure tannins that just keep going. The 2024 Chai de la Dive "Les Moulins" is organically farmed Cabernet Franc from multiple sites across Berrie, Brézé, and Montreuil-Bellay on Turonian and Jurassic limestone — the debut vintage of a new négociant project born from one of Saumur's most celebrated addresses. Romain Guiberteau — mentored by the legendary Nady Foucault of Clos Rougeard — launched Chai de la Dive with his daughter Camille, her partner Alex Crochet, and American expat Brendan Stater-West, to source high-quality fruit from neighboring organic growers and make earlier-drinking wines that free the domaine to focus on its most serious, age-worthy bottlings. "Chai" is French for wine cellar. Consider this the cellar door. Decant it, give it time, and pay attention.