Two iconic French white wines were our focus for our August tastings.
Sancerre, at the eastern end of the Loire Valley, is around a hundred kilometres from Chablis, the most northerly of the Burgundy appellations. They share a famous soil – Kimmeridgian clay, overlaying Portlandian limestone: these names reflect the nature of the Paris Basin which stretches beyond the English Channel, revealing fossils in Dorset, and supporting exciting new vine growing areas in the south of England.
In Sancerre, Sauvignon Blanc is the grape variety (they also make reds from Pinot Noir). We warmed up with another Loire Sauvignon Blanc, from the Touraine, further west. This provided the classic citrus, cut grass and for some ‘cat’s pee on a gooseberry bush’ aromas that make this grape variety fairly easy to spot. At £13 it was a very good wine – not as hugely aromatic as a new world wine, but with lovely ripe fruit and a lovely creamy texture. Adequately prepared we then compared two Sancerres. Domaine Sauterau mainly blend grapes from across the Sancerre AOC, but their Vignoble des Sarrottes is from an individual site (lieu-dit). This was more powerful, but very elegant with lovely acidity and a very long finish. The Sancerre l’Antique from Florian Mollet is also from a single site, which has a high concentration of silex (flint), that did seem to add a distinctive minerality to its complex flavours – a lovely wine, though at nearly three times the price of the Touraine, for special occasions.
We worked our way up the Chablis ladder, starting with an AOC Petit Chablis from Domaine Dominic Gruhier and ending on the Monday with an AOC Chablis Grand Cru Les Blanchots on Monday, and the Terroir de Fleys from Patrick Piuze on Sunday – the latter from vineyards that could have been classified as Premier or Grand Cru, but for whatever reason, weren’t. All our Chablis showed the beautiful elegance that Chardonnay can produce – and the benefits of a warming climate for what had been a very marginal wine growing area.
The Britannia, as always, produced a fabulous meal – chicken terrine for starter, and a pork chop with a sweet and sour garnish, which went very well with any tasting wines people had left, and our normal free flowing quaffing wines.
NOTE: our Sancerre and Chablis tasting at Teddington ran in October, with a similar lineup of wines
Details and pricing are on the Wines we have tasted page.
