Mathilde Magne spent the better part of a decade in wine before making any of her own, first as an agronomist and oenologist in Bordeaux at Château Lilian Ladouys and Château Figeac, then in Tuscany with Stefano Amerighi, and finally three years in the cellar of Sylvain Pataille in Marsannay, one of our favorite producers in all of Burgundy. It was Pataille's aligoté that turned her toward terroir-driven white wine, and a single bottle of Bruno Rochard's chenin that pointed her to the Loire. In April 2022 she and her husband Nicolas settled in Rochefort-sur-Loire, the schist country known as Anjou Noir, with just under seven acres of chenin blanc. She called the domaine Terres d'Imaginaire, terre for the ground and imaginaire for the creativity she brings to it, a shorthand for the meeting of terroir, personal taste, and experiment that she says every wine she loves comes from. The domaine has since grown to about 22 organically farmed acres, with pineau d'aunis, grolleau, and sauvignon blanc joining the chenin, every wine fermented with indigenous yeasts and bottled with the barest touch of sulfur.

Pineau d'aunis is the Loire's most idiosyncratic red grape, pale and peppery, and Aunix is Mathilde's case for treating it with real care. The vines were planted in 1975 on clay-sand over sandstone, quartz, and the gray-blue puddingstone particular to Anjou Noir. In the cellar she builds the fermentation like a millefeuille, alternating layers of destemmed fruit and whole clusters in equal measure with gentle punch-downs by foot. The wine is pressed midway through fermentation and finishes in used 225-liter barrels, where it rests until bottling.

Rose and peony lead, followed by ripe raspberry and wild strawberry, with the grape's signature white pepper held to a whisper. Alcohol is low, the acidity is bright without being sharp, and the tannins are so fine they barely register. Oak stays out of the way entirely. Drink from 2025 through 2029.