Les Quatre Piliers Touraine Première Cuvée Cabernet Franc 2021 (12 Bottles) Loire Valley, France

Gold Medal (Concours des Vins de Loire)

There is a real finesse to Valentin’s red wines, as you might expect, given that he has worked with Thierry Pillot and Rafael Coche in Burgundy. The first of two Cabernet Franc wines, this larger cuvée stems from a parcel of 45- to 50-year-old (on average) mass-selection vines in the red clay and silex soils of Saint-Aignan. Desloges crops at half the permitted yield for this region, and this wine ferments (with 5% bunches) in stainless steel without sulphur for two weeks.