Clos Rougeard (Foucault) is a legendary Saumur-Champigny estate with a cult following. Three star restaurants in France compete for small allotments of the Clos Rougeard’s Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc, and in the U.S. the wine is rarely available. Clos Rougeard’s 25-acre estate in Chacé has been in the Foucault family for eight generations. It is today run by brothers Charly and Nadi Foucault who took over management when their father retired in 1969. The fact that the AOC of Saumur-Champigny is now considered a hotbed of young winemaking talent owes much to the influence of the Foucaults, who insisted on organic farming, low yields and deeply traditional winemaking during the decades of the 1970s and 1980s when such methods were falling out of fashion. Because of the extraordinary reputation of Clos Rougeard wines, decade in and decade out, the Saumur-Champigny appellation now attracts young winemakers who hope to replicate the Foucaults’ success. Robert M. Parker Jr. is a fan, and has noted that “their remarkable wines indeed demonstrate the heights of vinous complexity and ageability to which Cabernet Franc and its growers can aspire along the Loire…”