2019 Couly Dutheil "Clos de l'Echo" Chinon

Staff Reviews

KM

Keith Mabry

Keith Mabry

K&L Buyer

Review Date: 03/2025

The Clos de l'Echo is one of the most revered sites in Chinon and it has one sole proprietor - Couly-Dutheil. The south-facing slope sits on one of the highest hilltops in the region, over the famed Turonian limestone. Most consider it a grand cru site for the region. There are plenty of Grand Cru Burgundies out there but sometimes they don't live up to their promise. This does. I often love to use the word purity to describe some of my favorite wines - sometimes too often - but this is not the case here. The simplicity with which Couly-Dutheil's wines are produced is one of the reasons I keep coming back to their wines. Hand harvested, native yeasts, fermented in tank, aged in concrete. No over-the-top winemaking. With no barrel aging - you are getting nothing but the "pure" expression of Cabernet Franc. This site produces bigger, longer lived wines and this young "Echo" is just beginning to shed some of its youthful cloak. The wine is laced with currants, black licorice, rosehips and powdered chalk. It is still a baby, and having had the good fortune to drink quite a few older Echos, the promise of longevity and complexity is borne out here. This is a great Echo and worthy of your cellar.

Notes

Maison Couly-Dutheil, founded in 1921, is one of the finest estates of the red wine-focused, central Loire region of Chinon, with eighty acres of prime Chinon vineyards as well as seven hectares of Saumur and Saumur Champigny. The estate's Chinon holdings are impressive as they spread over three distinct Chinon terroirs: Sand and gravel along the Vienne River which produce light and fruit-driven wines, siliceous slopes and plateaus which impart a certain finesse and elegance to Chinon; and finally clay and limestone slopes which produce Chinon's most serious and profound wines. The "Clos de l'Echo" vineyard is one of the most famous in the Loire. It is a 17 hectare monopole (Couly-Dutheil is the sole owner) that sits behind the famed royal fortress of Chinon. It's south facing slopes sit directly over the Turonian limestone and with just a breath of clay topsoil. This informs the depth and character of the Clos de l'Echo wines giving them their power and structure to age decisively for many years, if not decades. All grapes are hand harvested, vinification is in stainless steel with native yeasts kicking off the fermentation. Aging is in cement tank until bottling. A superb rendition from one of the regions most noteworthy producers.