Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
This is focused on minerality, with aromas of lemon paste, lemon leaves, flint, oyster shells and a floral character like broom flowers. Medium-bodied with a silky texture, subtle elegance and crisp, slightly leafy acidity. Vibrant finish. It still shows quite assertively green notes. From biodynamically grown grapes.
-
Wine Enthusiast
Tight and youthful, this is still a textured wine. It has intense citrus as well as richer white fruits, shot through with acidity. The wine will take its time.
-
Vinous
The 2021 Les Romains is a pure, clean and focused style. There's a delicate flint note on the nose and a precise line of acidity and push-pull texture on the palate. It's a firm style that speaks of its place - on the flinty side of Sancerre's fault line. There are no pretty florals here like you'd find on the chalk soils of Sancerre but a tension alongside greener-edged fruit. This is an assertive, vertical wine but not as nuanced. In time, it will improve, retaining brightness, unlike many wines found on the limestone, which are more immediately charming.
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.