Winemaker Notes
#51 Of Wine Enthusiast's Top 100
The 2017 Alphonse Mellot La Moussiere Sancerre Rouge is a very fine deep crimson color. The nose exudes hints of small red and black fruit like raspberries, currants, mulberries and morello cherries, with spicy traces of pink peppercorns, vanilla and cinnamon. It is mellow, well rounded and well structured. A woody background goes with spicy traces and aromas of fruit. A wine long in the mouth,high in alcohol and pleasant, a real winner.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This wine comes from Mellot's home domaine of La Moussière, It is young and intense, with a mix of spice, concentrated citrus and crisp acidity. The depth of flavor in this wine is extraordinary and merits aging.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The red 2017 Sancerre La Moussière Red offers a pure, fresh, coolish, quite aromatic as well as spicy sour cherry bouquet with stony, floral and some peppery notes. Silky, elegant and refined on the palate, this is a concentrated, intense, stunningly warm and powerful yet still overall coolish and structured Pinot Noir with fleshy fruit structured by mineral freshness and fine phenolic grip. The finish is vital, fleshy and intense, with fine tannins and a certain roundness and texture. The 2017 is still young, but it's an impressive gastronomic Pinot that should go well with many dishes. 13% alcohol. Tasted in November 2020.
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.