The 2022 Saumur Blanc "À l’Ecart" from Clotilde Legrand is a superb young bottle of chenin blanc. The wine is already starting to show a bit of that chalk dustiness of young chenin and is best, if drunk now, to be given twenty to thirty minutes in decanter to blossom. Once it opens up, it delivers a superbly complex bouquet of apple, quince, a beautiful base of soil tones, a touch of orange peel, lanolin, dried flowers and a hint of incipient beeswax in the upper register. On the palate the wine is crisp, full-bodied, focused and soil-driven in personality, with a great core of fruit, a fine spine of acidity, excellent backend grip and lovely balance on the long and complex finish. I suspect that this will go through a period of hibernation a few years down the road, like a top flight Vouvray Sec, but for the moment it is drinking very well indeed with a bit of aeration. It will be long-lived.