Winemaker Notes
This Claude Riffault Sancerre Blanc Les Chasseignes expresses itself on its finesse of fruit. On the palate, the limestone minerality gives it length and persistence.
Serve this wine as an aperitif or with grilled fish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Exhibiting a delicate, subtle bouquet of oak reduction, white orchard fruits and flowers, the 2022 Sancerre Les Chasseignes possesses a medium to full-bodied, satiny and deep palate with a seamless texture, a fleshy core of fruit and a long, saline, ethereal finish.
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Vinous
The 2022 Les Chasseignes is a fine, rounded wine with some sweet vanilla oak meeting nectarine. It has excellent clarity and is refined and elegant. Offering precision and detail, no hair is out of place here. There's a lovely chalky texture on the finish.
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Wine Spectator
Vibrant and taut, offering modest notes of apple, yellow plum, spices and dried hay undercut with savory oyster shell minerality. Textured, with some plumpness to the zesty palate through the balanced finish. Drink now through 2028. 2,000 cases made, 400 cases imported.
Capable of a vast array of styles, Sauvignon Blanc is a crisp, refreshing variety that equally reflects both terroir and varietal character. Though it can vary depending on where it is grown, a couple of commonalities always exist—namely, zesty acidity and intense aromatics. This variety is of French provenance. Somm Secret—Along with Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc is a proud parent of Cabernet Sauvignon. That green bell pepper aroma that all three varieties share is no coincidence—it comes from a high concentration of pyrazines (herbaceous aromatic compounds) inherent to each member of the family.
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.