This Week's Tasting
All Around Sancerre - Flowers and Flint
October 1, 2025
These days, Sancerre has been our most asked-for white wine. Its crisp, concise version of Sauvignon Blanc is clean and direct in a way that works wonderfully as an aperitif or with seafood. (click link in heading above to read more)
 |
This Week Wednesday, October 1, 2025 All Around Sancerre Flowers and Flint In-store, 5 - 6:30pm
|
These days, Sancerre has been our most asked-for white wine. Its crisp, concise version of Sauvignon Blanc is clean and direct in a way that works wonderfully as an aperitif or with seafood. Several wine regions near it produce similar, very delicious wines, some at bargain prices. This week’s tasting features some of these, along with one of the most complex and layered Sancerres we’ve tasted recently. We’ll try some of these as well as two of the region’s Pinot Noirs.
Other Loire Sauvignon Blancs have names that are as hard for some of us to get our mouths around as their wines are flavorful. The Coteaux Giennoise - koe-toe zhen waz- the hillsides around the town of Gien are just downriver from Sancerre. The 2023 Domaine Villargeau bursts out with lime and mineral notes, calling out for briny oysters. We loved it at first smack.
We liked their 2023 Pinot Noir just as much. Its price makes it a steal.
Pouilly-Fumé – not to be confused with Burgundy’s Chardonnay Pouilly-Fuissé - is just across the river from Sancerre, and like it’s also Sauvignon Blanc. Its wines are mostly fuller and stronger-flavored than those of its neighbor, with rounder, darker fruit.
One of the oldest and best estates is Domaine Corty, run by the same family since 1677. Their pride is their two reserve wines. You can try both, made precisely the same way, to taste how different soils produce wines of differing flavors.
In Sancerre itself, Henri Bourgeois is also a generations-old family estate. Their reserve Sanceree Eocene Silex 56 is fascinatingly complex and layered. Also grown on flint, which was laid down during the Eocene geologic era 56 million years ago, it swirls flint and flower together in a delightful call and response different from Corty’s.
Domaine Pelle is in Menetou-Salon, about a 20-minute drive west of Sancerre. Its wines have a depth and concentration that can rival Sancerre, we’ll try their full and round Pinot Noir from the hamlet of Morogues.
White
2023 Villargeau Côteaux Giennoise Les Abeilles Blanc; Aroma: fresh, robust, incisive lime and mineral; Mouth: nice acid drive, good minerality, direct and enlivening, excellent intensity and concentration; Very Good Plus 21.99, case 18.99
2023 Henri Bourgeois Sancerre 'Eocene-Silex 56'; Aroma: Light, fresh, clean, pretty lifted and forward, mineral and light spice; Mouth: Clean, fine acid mineral, gunflint,
classic Sancerre; Excellent $50; Case, $42
2022 Domaine Corty
Some will like it round
Pouilly Fume Les Caillottes
Caillottes are small stones on the surface that hold the sun's heat to warm the vines during the night. Their wine is richer and fruitier, with lots of depth.
Decanter “This showcases the ripe fruit of the warm 2022 vintage, coming across as quite tropical with notes of mango, pineapple, and Sorrento lemon. Yet despite the ripeness the wine retains excellent freshness, in part thanks to its delicious texture: chalky, plush and chewy, with ample space to the wine in the mouth, and silky on the finish. Generous while also being mineral and fine. Excellent
Others prefer a finer edge.
Pouilly Fume Silex
Silex means flint. Wines from its soils are accented with a high, keening mineral-acid edge that defines them and makes them an excellent pairing for seafood.
Decanter “The Silex cuvée has excelled in the 2022 vintage, a gorgeous wine that's brimming with potential and should reward cellaring. It's so flinty and smoky on the nose, a nostalgic aroma, struck match and fine herbs. The fruit is pure, showing greengage, pineapple, gooseberry, green apple and lemon. It's tight and linear, very tense in the mouth, with mouth-puckering and succulent acidity, with a subtle relaxing of creaminess on the finish. Electifying, providing energy and lift.”Excellent
Red
2023 Domaine de Villargeau Côteaux de Giennoise Pinot Noir; Color: very dark, some density; Aroma: sweet & heady new world plum, very ripe, a touch of herbaceous minerality; Mouth: clean, richly textured, raspberry plum, good drive, succulent, light texture black cherry & plum; Very Good Plus $18.99; Case, $15.99
2022 Domaine Henry Pellé Menetou Salon Morogues; Color: medium dark; Aroma: heady, earthy, somewhat fleshy, plum & sweet steel; Mouth: clean, fine, lovely acid, lighter in body, deep pinot flavors, good length; Very Good Plus $29.99; Case, $25.49
Sancerre’s Surrounds Case $395, $335, ($27.92)
Or mix any 12 bottles at their case prices
Len Rothenberg
Order by phone at 617.367.8605, or reserve here: order@federalwine.com
Please pass this on to any friends who are wine enthusiasts!
- Len Rothenberg
|
|
FREE DELIVERY!
downtown on orders more than $75;
in Greater Boston on orders more than $199
