A high-scoring, single-vineyard Sancerre from emblematic terroir
The diverse vineyards of Burgundy attract great interest, and erudite tomes - it is a lot harder to scout information about vineyards in Sancerre. But for winemaker Stephane Riffault, Sancerre is one of the great terroirs of France, able to produce 'great white wines of stature and complexity' - and he is on a mission to prove just that. When he took up the reins at his family domaine, commentators noticed how a domaine making perfectly good but perhaps unexciting wine suddenly became much, much more interesting.
Stephane began to learn his craft at the side of his father Claude, but his questioning mind took him beyond the bounds of Sancerre. He went to study in Beaune, deeply absorbing Burgundian influences. His brother Benoit is the winemaker at Domaine Etienne Sauzet, and there is a deep and ongoing exchange of ideas between the two brothers. After a stage in Bordeaux Stephane returned to Sancerre, from where he carries on remote conversations with many of France's great growers. In Claude's time, vinification was carried out entirely in stainless steel. But one of Stephane's first actions was to introduce large, old barrels alongside the steel vats, which give the wines more texture. And he has dramatically increased the amount of lees aging, believing this leads to more complex, more gastronomic wines.
There are three classic terroirs in Sancerre: flint, caillottes (a pebbley limestone), and terres blanches (Kimmeridgian marl, a dark, chalky limestone rich in fossils). While all three of those terroirs can be responsible for great wines, it is the terres blanches that are most emblematic of the region. Les Denisottes is a vineyard just outside Riffault's cellar in the hamlet of Chambre, in the sort of difficult, shallow terres blanches soils that force vines to overperform. The vines here are between 40-50 years old. Riffault's 2019 Les Denisottes is intense and mineral, complex and structured. It has as much golden fruit and spice as varietal nettle and gooseberry, and while it is a beautiful match for the region's goat cheese, Stephane says it is even better with less typical smoked fish. /NT
'From 40- to 53-year-old vines in a southeast-facing vineyard at 260 meters in altitude where the vines root in pretty shallow Kimmeridgian soils (only 80 centimeters of topsoil), the 2019 Sancerre Les Denisottes opens deep, fresh and flinty on the coolish, dense and highly expressive nose that is fascinatingly complex and stony while the fruit remains in the background. Full-bodied, intense and tightly structured on the palate, this is a long, tight and very complex Sancerre with power, juice, extract, grip and a stimulatingly fine and salty finish. This is a deep, wide and generous as well as sustainable Sancerre of great class and youth. Highly promising. Take a Burgundy glass for this Denisottes that even reveals some gin and cucumber aromatics...' 94 points, Stephan Reinhardt, robertparker.com, March 2021
Offered subject to remaining unsold; for shipment late Spring 2021
