The other Pouilly: Domaine Corty Artisan
2022 Pouilly-Fume Caillottes + 2022 Pouily-Fume Silex
May 28, 2025
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Pouilly-Fuisse, Burgundy’s chardonnay-based white, has been well-known for over a century, but another Pouilly, Pouilly sur Loire also makes fine white wines.
Just across the river from Sancerre, and like it, its grape is also Sauvignon Blanc, but in a different guise than its lighter, higher-toned neighbor.
Pouilly-Fumé is fuller, darker, with more fruit than Sancerre. When carefully made, its terroir can also shine through the grape to make a more complex wine.
There, the same family has run Domain e Corty since it was begun in 1677
Brothers Julien and Arnaud Moreux now claim some of the most exceptional terroirs in the Loire. Their motto is “Harmony between working the vines and their natural environment”. Treatments are kept to a minimum, with no chemical fertilizers. Vineyard work is done by hand, including pruning and de-budding, while respecting the flow of the sap.
In the cellar, they meld ancestral knowledge with modern techniques. Each parcel is vinified separately in thermo-controlled stainless steel tanks. All fermentations are spontaneous, and the indigenous microflora of the grapes is the cradle of each tank. Each tank preserves its unique character and freedom of terroir expression—a full vinification process carried out by the lunar cycle, including fining and filtration.
The domaine takes pride in two reserve-level wines that showcase the difference the land can make to flavor.
Caillottes are small stones that lie on the surface of the land. They capture the sun's heat to warm the vines during the night. Their wine is richer and fruitier, with a lot of depth in dark fruit.
Silex means flint. Its soils produce a wine with the same fruit but accented with a high, keening mineral-acid edge that makes them more defined and a great pairing for seafood.
I loved these wines. Decanter did also:
Some like it round
2022 Corty Pouilly Fume Les Caillottes
“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
Some prefer a finer edge
2022 Domaine Corty Pouilly Fume Silex
“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
$38, $32, by the case. Any quantity of either wine mix for a case.
In stock – limited quantities
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downtown on orders more than $75;
in Greater Boston on orders more than $199
