Domaine du Collier has emerged as one of the most compelling estates in the Loire Valley, producing remarkably distinctive expressions of Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc from the limestone-rich terroirs of Saumur. The domaine was founded in 1999 by Antoine Foucault and Caroline Boireau, when Antoine was just 26 years old. Antoine is the son of the late Charly Foucault, one half of the legendary Foucault brothers behind Clos Rougeard, and spent four years working alongside his father and uncle, Charly and Nady, before establishing his own estate. The name Domaine du Collier comes from the Place du Collier, where the family home is located.

The domaine began with four hectares of vines acquired through Antoine’s family in Brézé and has since grown to around six to seven hectares, while production remains tiny at roughly 1,250 cases annually. Chenin Blanc forms the heart of the estate, including parcels of exceptionally old vines, some more than 100 years of age, alongside a much smaller planting of Cabernet Franc. Antoine quickly recognised that the poor, stony, limestone-dominated soils around Brézé were particularly suited to Chenin. While his family’s reputation at Clos Rougeard had been built largely around Cabernet Franc, Domaine du Collier has developed an identity equally—if not more strongly—through its profound, long-lived white wines.

Antoine's approach is uncompromising in both vineyard and cellar. The vineyards are farmed organically, without chemical fertilisers or herbicides, and the soils are worked to encourage the roots deep into the underlying chalky tuffeau limestone. Harvesting is entirely by hand, with rigorous sorting carried out in the vineyard. In the cellar, fermentations occur naturally with indigenous yeasts, followed by exceptionally long élevage, often 24 to 36 months without racking. Sulphur is avoided throughout élevage and used only at bottling. Perhaps most importantly, the wines mature in an extraordinarily cold underground cellar that forms part of the same extensive network of caves associated with Clos Rougeard. This slow, cool maturation contributes to the remarkable patience these wines demand and their unusually gradual evolution in bottle.

There is considerable power and substance to Domaine du Collier, yet the defining qualities are clarity, precision and minerality rather than sheer weight. The wines can be intensely concentrated, but they retain an almost ethereal lift and finely detailed structure. This combination of power and delicacy has made the domaine particularly admired among serious followers of both Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc. They are also wines built for the cellar: youthful examples can be tightly wound and reserved, gradually revealing greater complexity and dimension with age.

The principal white, Saumur Blanc, comes from mature Chenin Blanc vines, approximately 20 to 75 years old, grown predominantly on clay-limestone soils and cropped at low yields. Even in its youth it possesses remarkable depth and concentration, but—as with the greatest expressions of Chenin—its real complexity emerges through bottle age. Above this sits Saumur Blanc ‘La Charpentrie’, produced from the domaine’s oldest Chenin vines, including vines exceeding 100 years of age. It takes the intensity and mineral character of the estate to another level, with additional concentration, depth and extraordinary ageing potential.

For red, Saumur Rouge ‘La Ripaille’ represents Antoine’s interpretation of Cabernet Franc. It combines the grape's savoury, mineral character with considerable resonance and depth, yet remains remarkably precise and finely detailed. There is an inevitable connection to Clos Rougeard through Antoine’s family and formative experience, but Domaine du Collier has developed a personality entirely its own. Today, rather than simply being regarded as an offshoot of one of the Loire's most celebrated domaines, Domaine du Collier stands among Saumur's great estates in its own right—tiny in production, uncompromising in approach and capable of producing some of the Loire Valley’s most profound and age-worthy wines.