Winemaker Notes
Beautiful deep crimson color. A very big area of land located on Lusitanian to Portlandian period cretaceous rock at the top of the Moussiere where a pocket of Buzancais limestone gives it compact fine grained features. Mulberries, Morello cherries and pink peppercorns melt into long lasting silky tannins.
Pair with chicken liver terrine with onion preserve, prime Charolais steak with bone marrow, and red fleshed peach in cracked aniseed syrup.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
From a parcel within the La Moussière estate, this is a luscious wine. Its wood is still present but will be absorbed by the generous black fruits and tannins. The wine has profited from the fine vintage and shows impressive richness.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
From the upper part of La Moussière and from calcareous soils, the 2015 Sancerre En Grands Champs opens with an aromatic cherry and black olive nose that comes along open, matured, sweet and toasty but also floral, pure and stony, with tobacco, mushroom and herbal notes in the background. With aeration, this becomes a pretty fascinating yet certainly warm and ripe 2015. Full-bodied, wide, intense and deep on the palate, this is a full-bodied yet very fine, elegant and rather smooth but delicate and balanced Pinot with wild strawberry and licorice aromas. It has firm but soon polymerizing tannins that are not as refined as in the Génération XIX but provide structure to this full-bodied, rich, sweet and juicy Pinot that represents the warm and sunny vintage. Dark meat (venison) should be an excellent partner with the Em Grands Champs.
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Wine Spectator
Stylish, with gently mulled black cherry and blackberry fruit flavors infused with cinnamon and black tea hints. Sous bois notes glide through the silky finish.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Marked by its charming hilltop village in the easternmost territory of the Loire, Sancerre is famous for its racy, vivacious, citrus-dominant Sauvignon blanc. Its enormous popularity in 1970s French bistros led to its success as the go-to restaurant white around the globe in the 1980s.
While the region claims a continental climate, noted for short, hot summers and long, cold winters, variations in topography—rolling hills and steep slopes from about 600 to 1,300 feet in elevation—with great soil variations, contribute the variations in character in Sancerre Sauvignon blancs.
In the western part of the appellation, clay and limestone soils with Kimmeridgean marne, especially in Chavignol, produce powerful wines. Moving closer to the actual town of Sancerre, soils are gravel and limestone, producing especially delicate wines. Flint (silex) soils close to the village produce particularly perfumed and age-worthy wines.
About ten percent of the wines claiming the Sancerre appellation name are fresh and light red wines made from Pinot noir and to a lesser extent, rosés. While not typically exported in large amounts, they are well-made and attract a loyal French following.