Domaine L'AM

Savennieres, Loire

Location L'Aiglerie, Savennieres
Grapes Chenin Blanc
Viticulture Minimal intervention
Producer Producers! Five Friends
Website -
Location L'Aiglerie, Savennieres
Grapes Chenin Blanc
Viticulture Minimal intervention
Producer Producers! Five Friends
Website -

In 2020, five friends, all university professors, clubbed together to realise a long-held dream to make wines in what they considered to be the greatest terroir in the Loire Valley, Savennières, and Domaine de l’AM was formed (the AM stands for Anne Madeleine, the patron of the vineyard). They planted 1.2 hectares of sandy schist soils in the humeau of Aiglerie and invested in the requisite tanks barrels and press required to make the 2-3000 bottles of wines they felt they could produce from their vines. The work is by hand, no chemicals or fertilizers have been used on the land to their knowledge, and biodiversity is key to their philosophy of healthy vines equalling healthy wines. 

 

After three winters they were , in 2022, ready to produce their first wine, and were helped by a warm and generous vintage allowing them to get an idea of what they had got themselves into. The results are plain to see as, after 18 months in barrel and tank, the first cuvee is ready for release. The wine is as you might expect, taut, honed and full of energy, concentrated and linear with emerging complexity as it settles on the palate and builds through the finish. There is a touch of the intellectual about this wine, and to be given the opportunity to be able to follow this nascent estate in what we are sure will be an incredible future was too good to miss 


Domaine L'AM Wine

Deux Terres 100% Chenin, on a sandy-schist Saponian hillside. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats, then ageing in barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to a blend of barrels from two different vintages (2023 and 2024), isolated and selected to complement each other.
Cuvee A 100% Chenin, on a sandy-schist Saponian hillside. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats; 12 months of ageing in 2 to 5-year-old barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to the harvest from the top of the Aiglerie plot, whose terroir is made up of Aeolian sands.
Cuvee M 100% Chenin Blanc. Sandy schist soils. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats; 12 months of ageing in 2 to 5-year-old barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to the harvest at the bottom of the Aiglerie plot, whose terroir is mainly made up of schist
Deux Terres 100% Chenin, on a sandy-schist Saponian hillside. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats, then ageing in barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to a blend of barrels from two different vintages (2023 and 2024), isolated and selected to complement each other.
Cuvee A 100% Chenin, on a sandy-schist Saponian hillside. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats; 12 months of ageing in 2 to 5-year-old barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to the harvest from the top of the Aiglerie plot, whose terroir is made up of Aeolian sands.
Cuvee M 100% Chenin Blanc. Sandy schist soils. Indigenous yeasts; spontaneous fermentation in vats; 12 months of ageing in 2 to 5-year-old barrels (French oak); stirring on fine lees. This cuvee corresponds to the harvest at the bottom of the Aiglerie plot, whose terroir is mainly made up of schist