Loire 2021 Releases

This north-facing limestone site is cool and late ripening. In a warm year like 2019 its quality soars. There is such a fine acidity and outstanding length. I was really blown away by this, and can’t wait to see how the fruit and acidity entwine further with some bottle age. Nervous and tense, this warrants attention.

This is packed with juicy concentration, with an impressive tension. This is terroir-driven Sauvignon Blanc, with the texture and balance to age well, though it’s probably too enticing to ignore right now. Impressive length.

As the name suggests, this cuvée has no dosage, and so has not a drop of residual sugar. As a result, the wine expresses abundant freshness and minerality, supported by bright citrus and green fruit. The 2017 has a bright refreshing acidity and subtle richness, thanks to its oak ageing.

90% Chenin Blanc, 10% Chardonnay. Year in, year out, this is a firm favourite of ours for its deliciously smooth, creamy palate, and fresh, lightly citrus flavours as well as its unbeatable price. The 2018 Saphir is brimming with energy.

This cuvée had formerly been known as Blanc Fumé. It is a blend of equal parts marl, clay, and flinty soils from across the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. It’s hardly fitting to call this Dagueneau’s ‘entry level’ wine, but it is probably their most accessible. There is ample green fruits and a superbly expressed chiselled texture.

Silex is one of the Dagueneau signature wines, and has brought an obscure name for a type of soil - flint - into the fine wine mainstream. The 2018 has a sublime power to it, and a smoky, ethereal perfume.

Pur Sang is French for thoroughbred, and his is indeed a first rate cuvée. It is a ripe and enticing style, with peachy fruit, and the toasty caress of a little new oak. Sublime winemaking, drawing out the weighty concentration of Sauvignon with the nervous and brilliant freshness of this region.

This vineyard lies right next to the domaine and was the first single vineyard that Charles Joguet focused on. Its north-east facing slope and old vines planted on clay-limestone soils produce a wine with outstanding energy, and spicy density. Profoundly deep but with no heaviness. There is such a sweet intensity to the Cabernet Franc fruit, and a mouthwatering salinity.

This is the domaine’s ‘newest’ parcel, bought in 1976. Located near the cellar, in the south of the Chinon appellation, this is like a mini Clos de la Dioterie, on deep clay-limestone soils with colluvial topsoil. It typically shows great balance between tannins and acidity, so smooth and composed in 2019. It glides to an effortlessly elegant and long finish.

This pale pink rosé made from Pinot Noir is vibrant, fresh, and so easy to drink. Lightly scented with red currants, Sancerre’s signature acidity gives the palate drive and focus. Luc Prieur uses the fruit from his young vine Pinot, and the wine is juicy, bright, and refreshing: a brilliant alternative to Provençal rosé.

Sancerre’s best known and greatest site, this dramatic hillside of terres blanches in Chavignol wraps around the hillside and dips into the commune of Verdigny, where Luc’s parcel lies. This 2018 has that signature power and depth you should expect from this exceptional site. The attack is ample and weighted, with a luminous acidity that drives through to a long, lingering finish. This will age with great style.

This is everything we’ve been looking for in a dry Vouvray: precise, chiselled Chenin fruit, balanced weight, sappy freshness, and flinty finish. It comes from clay and flint soils around the domaine, and is a great showcase for the 2019 vintage. So refreshing and well-made.

This sparkling wine is made by transferring the still sweet and fermenting grape juice into bottle, and then trapping the subsequent carbon dioxide as it continues to ferment to dryness in the bottle. No dosage is added, though the spent yeast cells are expelled, leaving a brilliant, crystalline sparkling wine behind. It has such a wonderful depth and complexity on the nose, with a vinous structure on the palate, and a salty zing. The creamy mousse wraps around crunchy apple fruit. Experience from tasting back vintages of this cuvée shows me this wine ages brilliantly, and will develop complex depth, and savoury precision with a few years in bottle. It’s one of the most exciting wines on the list this year.

This is the jewel in the crown of this domaine. It comes from a limestone (tuffeau) site overlooking the Loire which is so steep it has to be worked by horse instead of tractor. The nose has a chalky, mineral note alongside the apple and quince notes. The palate has a satisfying and silky weight, and a long, powerful finish.

This is made from two parcels, both planted in the 1940s. Jérôme uses the fifteenth-century tuffeau cuve in the old cellar to do a long, slow fermentation to bring out some delicious complexity in this Cabernet Franc. This has a subtle, sophisticated nose, and the palate is fine and enticing. Supple tannins, a juicy dark fruit core, and a long flow with a mineral finish.

This wine is made from the rare and exciting Romorantin grape. It has a fragrant nose of lilies, toffee apple, blossom, and notes of iodine. The palate has arresting, flinty freshness with a razor sharp acidity, giving it a stinging nettle piquancy, wrapped around by generous fruit. Don’t be afraid to cellar this.

This comes from various parcels of younger vines, aged around 20 years old. The name is a tongue-in-cheek nod to a dispute many years back with a neighbouring vigneron. In Savennières, the vignerons have a wicked sense of humour as well as great pride in their appellation. The grapes are picked at the beginning of harvest, and there is a pithy, almost spicy, salty tang to the dry but juicy palate. It has a floral elegance and its vibrant freshness makes it so delicious to drink right now. Precise, with plush fruit, and seriously refreshing.

This is the flagship wine of the estate, and the 2018 is a magnificent example. There is such sweet purity to the apple blossom and orchard fruit aroma. On the palate this is exquisitely long and fine; this should age with grace, increasing in complexity as the years go by.

These vines are grown on sandstone soils, and are picked around 10 days after La Jalousie, when the skins are a little thicker and beginning to turn golden brown. The wine is aged for 18 months in demi-muids, and the result is a wine that so perfectly captures the essence of Chenin Blanc. This is all crisp russet apple with just a hint of nutty complexity emerging. The palate is, whilst arresting in its freshness, also so silky in texture - a quality Evelyne says is typical of Les Caillardières. Captivating.

This is a blend of four parcels, with a high proportion of fruit from vines older than 50 years. It is smooth and fruity. Its brightness is piqued with a fine line of pithy bitterness. This is a great example of the appellation, and has taken on some definition and drive from its first year in bottle. This is so refreshing and quenching.

This is the defining site of Sancerre, and akin to a grand cru in the appellation. It is the steep slope that runs the length of the Chavignol village and its south-facing aspect and terres blanches soils produce the appellation’s most powerful and long-lived wines. François’s wine perfectly captures the power and finesse of this great site, with statuesque poise.

This terres blanches site rises up behind the village of Chavignol and although it is only shared amongst a few growers, is one of the most famous sites in Sancerre. It shares the power of neighbouring Monts Damnés, with a tender, fleshy fruit and floral texture on the body.

This comes from parcels around the village of Chavignol, on the chalky limestone soils. It is the most approachable and early drinking of the Cotat range, but even this will improve over many years. The juiciest and most approachable in youth of François’s wines.

Another terres blanches site, this is in the small hamlet of Amigny, and is considered by many as the defining wine of the Cotat collection. It often needs the longest time in the cellar, too. With time it will reveal a level of volume and density uncommon in Sauvignon Blanc, taking the variety far beyond its usual earthly bounds.