Damien Laureau: Wines
Come harvest time, like many producers in the appellation Damien and his team pass through the vines picking according to ripeness, but Damien adds another layer of complexity here, sorting the grapes according to terroir of origin. He began this in 2007 and has continued in subsequent vintages, and thus Damien’s two principal cuvées give a rare glimpse into the terroirs of the Savennières appellation which, although dominated by schist, includes a complex diversity of soil types. Damien (pictured below, the windmill at La Petite Roche behind) makes a fairly broad division, with fruit sourced from more sandy-silty soils destined for Les Genêts, an earlier-drinking cuvée, whereas that from schist gives a much firmer, longer-lived wine named Le Bel Ouvrage.
Obviously his vines in Savennières Roche-aux-Moines are committed to a cuvée of their own, and another site-specific cuvée was La Petite Roche, introduced in the 2013 vintage, which was sourced from a small parcel between Savennières and La Possonnière. In the 2019 vintage, however, this cuvée was replaced by L’Alliance, which takes the fruit from the still-young vines at La Petite Roche and combines it with fruit from young vines near the cellars in Le Pitrouillet, in the Moulin de Beaupréau, as well as some press wine from Les Genêts.
