Winemaker Notes
Cherry red color. A rich and complex nose, which expresses red fruit aromas and a slightly spicy note. The palate is steady, long, well-balanced with very soft and silky tannins, allowing the wine to age for a few years.
An ideal food pairing for grilled red meat, game meat, or cheese.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
In this wine, redfruit aromas follow through to ripe tannins and generous red berry flavors. A lightly smoky character is sustained by the firm structure. Age this wine and drink from 2022
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James Suckling
Fresh notes of sour cherries and redcurrants and floral undertones. It’s medium-bodied with plush tannins. Fresh and juicy with lively acidity and a bright core of red fruit. Velvety and flavorful through to the end. Fine tannins. Drink or hold.
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.