Alex's Notes on Château Saint-Maur
Château Saint-Maur is one of the top Provence estates, evidenced by its status as a Cru Classé of which only 18 exist out of around 650 producers. It was founded in the 19th century and is located near the town of Cogolin in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez.
The estate covers nearly 100 hectares of vines in the foothills of the Maures massif, 75 hectares of which are AOP Côtes de Provence and 23 hectares IGP Vin de Pays du Var. Of the 75 hectares of AOP Côtes de Provence, there is a little gem of 14 hectares: the Clos de Capelune, a vineyard at the highest altitude in all of Provence.
Now owned by French industrialist and entrepreneur Roger Zannier, the estate has had significant investment over the last decade and now boasts state-of-the-art winemaking facilities. You only have to taste the wines to know this is a producer at the top of its game.
Winemaking & Ethos
The winemaking is lead by Patrick Galliano, and having followed this producer for some time, I'd say the wines made here are now among the finest produced in Provence.
Their wines are notable for their freshness and intensity, with their flagship single‑parcel wine, Clos de Capelune, representing the pinnacle of the domaine’s production in white and rosé form.
While their rosé might fly under-the-radar compared to the likes of Château d'Esclans (Whispering Angel) and Miraval, there are reasons for this - production is significantly lower, fruit selection is more discerning and sourced only from their own vineyards, and their money goes more towards making high quality wine than on marketing.
The proof for them is in the glass, not in the wine's ubiquity. Château d'Esclans (Whispering Angel, etc) and Miraval produce bottles in the millions, while Château Saint‑Maur is a Cru Classé estate with much smaller, premium‑focused production. The fact that their Clos de Capelune is a sommelier favourite, sought after for its intrinsic quality and food pairing ability, says it all.
What is also telling is that unlike the two producers mentioned above - probably the two Provence brands most people will know of - Château Saint‑Maur does not bottle its Clos de Capelune in clear glass but in brown glass.
Why is this? It is because rosé bottled in clear glass is at high risk of being tainted by something called 'light strike' or in French 'goût de lumière' - either lightly tainted or very badly tainted, there is a spectrum, like when a wine is corked. In short, it is photochemical damage caused by exposure to UV or blue light.
Light strike is a problem much more serious than many care to admit and results in the loss of fruit character both on the nose and palate and at its worst the development of a myriad of unpleasant off-flavours such as boiled cabbage, rotten egg, onion or garlic, damp cardboard, sewage, wet dog, and metallic notes.
I have had a lot of rosé that has either had these off-flavours or has just tasted muted and flat. Thankfully with the Clos de Capelune there is very little risk of this, as dark brown glass is the best colour for preventing Light Strike.
Masters of Wine Susie Barrie and Peter Richards on their 'Wine Blast' podcast refer to Light Strike as the "biggest wine fault you've never heard of". If you have a longish car journey coming up have a listen:
https://susieandpeter.com/podcast-episodes/season-five-wine-blast-podcast
The winemaking synopsis for the Clos de Capelune rosé:
- Hand-harvested at night to preserve its full freshness and to pick only ripe, healthy fruit.
- The juice macerates ('macération a froid') and is then fermented at a cold temperature in truncated cone-shaped vats with pumping over and punching of the cap - rare in rosé production, this extracts as much character from the fruit as possible and develops texture and complexity.
The result is an "haute‑cuisine rosé", capable of pairing with refined dishes rather than simply for casual summer drinking.
Terroir - the environment that dictates viticultural and winemaking methods, and shapes the wine
Clos de Capelune was planted at an altitude of 449 metres on the heights of the hill of Collobrières, with parcels of Cinsault, Rolle (aka Vermentino), Grenache, Syrah & Cabernet Sauvignon. The latter is not yet used in the rosé.
Soils are clay-limestone, rich in schist and quartz. These contribute to wines of aromatic complexity, freshness and minerality, as does the high‑altitude diurnal shifts (day-night temperatures) and the influence of the Mistral winds that allow for slow ripening.
At the estate, the Clos de Capelune is known as "the parcel close to the sky and the moon".
Sustainability
The 2024 Clos de Capelune, the one in your case, was the first vintage to be certified organic. This means that in its production there was zero use of chemical pesticides, herbicides and synthetic fertilisers in the vineyard. A major win for the environment while no nasty chemicals will have made their way into the wine.
Not using synthetic fertilisers has many benefits:
- the release of greenhouse gases resulting from their production is eliminated by producers who don't use them - producing and transporting nitrogen fertiliser is very energy-intensive and is reliant on fossil fuels.
- fertiliser is primarily added to ensure NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium) levels are sufficient (as well as some essential micro-nutrients) but this can be achieved much more sustainably via e.g. sheep grazing, natural applications and growing various cover crops (albeit this involves a lot more work).
- pollution in water, soil and air is greatly reduced - only a fraction of the nitrogen and phosphorous (and other elements) will be held in soil and taken up by the vines, while a very significant amount will run off into rivers and groundwater which damages aquatic ecosystems and contaminates our drinking water.
- over time, consistent use of synthetic fertiliser (especially those based on ammonium) damages soil health by acidifying soils, causing widespread dead zones in the soil, affecting vine health and productivity while eventually causing vine death - as the acidification negatively alters the soil microbiome, reducing beneficial fungi and bacteria while favouring acid‑tolerant pathogens. Soils have to be rebalanced by adjusting the pH, through adding yet more 'stuff', and this cycle continues. There is also a school of thought that vines become dependent on these applications and thus have less natural disease resistance, meaning they will also need more spraying to ward off disease - likely because beneficial fungi, like the all-important mycorrhizal fungi that in healthy soils deliver essential nutrients to the vines, are less abundant and effective in acidified soils.
- saving money and reducing dependency on imported fertilisers - prices are volatile and linked to geopolitical factors.
You can see from the photo above that during the winter there are sheep grazing in the vineyard, an extremely positive trend that has been increasing worldwide. This makes a lot of sense and producers are really seeing the benefits: sheep act as natural fertilisers while also being very effective lawnmowers and weedkillers!
All of the above is why Château Saint-Maur have adopted organic methods. It involves painstaking work - their conversion has taken eight years - but it's massively beneficial in the long-term for those looking to halt further environmental degradation as well as having significant financial and human health benefits.
Summary
One of Provence's finest, highly prized by sommeliers and thus found in many of the finest hotels and restaurants.