Famous Clos Cristal (Saumur-Champigny) available to rent

Extract from a report in Le Courrier de Ouest: 9th April 2016

'L'hôpital de Saumur vient de lancer un appel à fermage pour le Clos Cristal, hospices de Saumur, de Souzay-Champigny. Il est un des symboles du vignoble de Saumur avec sa technique des ceps passant à travers les murs.

Les rumeurs vont bon train sur l'état de santé du domaine du Clos Cristal. Propriété de l'hôpital de Saumur depuis un legs en 1928 d'Antoine Cristal, son fondateur, ces 10 ha de vignes sont aujourd'hui confrontés à des difficultés financières.'

Read the rest here.

Antoine Cristal (1836-1931) is widely credited as the father of good Saumur red wine, particularly after the ravages of phylloxera. In 1886 he acquired the Château de Parnay rapidly developing a passion for wine and viticulture. Cristal created two unique walled vineyards – Le Clos Cristal planted with Cabernet Franc for red wine and Le Clos des Murs planted with Chenin Blanc for white. 

They are unique because Cristal devised a system of walls that ran across the vineyard with the vine root planted on the shady side – clearly north in the case of the Clos des Murs – keeping the roots moist. The vine was then threaded through a hole in the wall to benefit from the sun and heat. 

In 1928 Cristal bequeathed his Clos Cristal to the Hôpital de Saumur before he died in 1931. 

Since 1996 Éric Dubois has run the Clos Cristal on behalf of l'Hôpital de Saumur. The vineyard is organic. Unfortunately, according to this report in Le Courrier de Ouest, the Clos has run into financial problems and the the owners are now looking to rent out this famous vineyard.

The Clos des Murs, still owned by the Château de Parnay, used to be in a lamentable state but, with a change of ownership, has happily now been restored.   

 Clos Cristal 

Clos des Murs       

2015 Les Grands Tablées du Saumur-Champigny – great first day

Les fenêtres Jack Hibbeard 

Very good to retrace my steps from my last visit to Les Grands Tablées in 2005. Our small press trip – Christine Austin, Juel Mahoney and myself – are staying at the same hotel as a decade ago – Le Hotel Cristal. I looked for the blue plaque that would commemorate Jack Hibbeard's feat of climbing up the drainpipe to his first floor room in the early hours of the morning, having forgotten his key to the main entrance. Unfortunately I could find no trace of a plaque – either the town of Saumur have yet to get round to putting one up or, perhaps more likely, some souvenir hunter has made off with it.      

Les fenêtres Jack Hibbeard 

Marie-Anne Simonneau serving a blind sample 

of Saumur-Champigny in the vines

During the afternoon we stopped at three vantage points in the Saumur-Champigny vineyards to taste wines from each particular terroir. The first was by the Cave Cooperative de Sy Cyr, the next above Les Poyeux – the single vineyard made famous by Les Frères Foucault – and the last by the Clos des Murs in Parnay. 

It was interesting to see that there were indeed differences between the styles of wines tasted in each location, particularly in the first two. Overall the wines from Les Poyeux had attractive texture and finesse.    

 Parnay: Clos des Murs: vines planted on the north side, 

trained through the wall to enjoy the heat and the sunshine from the south

 

First signs of the véraison on Chenin Blanc in the Clos des Murs

with the grapes starting to become translucent

Photos from a visit to Le Clos Cristal (Saumur-Champigny) in June 2006

Sign@Le Clos Cristal

10-hectare Le Clos Cristal is one of two vineyards designed and built by Le Père Cristal at the turn of the 20th century. Antoine Cristal built walls in his vineyards, which had holes in them. This allowed him to plant the vines in the shade and then to trained the vine through the hole, so that the rest of the plant and its grapes were in the sunshine and also benefited from the radiator effect of the sun’s heat stored and given out by the wall.

Above and below: vine roots in the shade

Rest of the vines facing the sun

Geese and a hen@Le Clos Cristal

Le Clos Cristal was planted with Cabernet Franc and only some of the vines are trained through walls, the rest of the vineyard is planted normally. However, in the Clos des Murs at Parnay (part of the Château de Parnay) all the vines are trained through the walls. This is a much small vineyard and is planted with Chenin Blanc.

Old bottles in the cellar@Le Clos Cristal

Sign@the Clos des Murs, Parnay

As far as I know nobody else took Cristal's example and planted walls in a vineyard for although it works – I have tasted several impressive vintages of the cuvée Clos des Murs from Le Clos Cristal – it must be a very expensive way of growing vines. There are some three kilometres of wall in the Clos Cristal.

More details on Antoine Cristal:

www.thewinedoctor.com/weekend/closcristalhospicessaumurchampigny06.shtml

www.mon-chef-a-moi.com/vin/val-de-loire/cristal.html

Also Le Clos Cristal www.clos-cristal.com