About this WINE
Didier Dagueneau
Domaine Didier Dagueneau is a highly acclaimed producer specializing in making exceptional Sauvignon Blanc wines in the Loire Valley. The family-run winery was founded by Didier Dagueneau, who tragically died in a flying accident in September 2008. Despite his untimely death, his legacy lives on through the extraordinary wines he crafted during his lifetime.
Dagueneau was considered a visionary who pushed the boundaries of Sauvignon Blanc production in the Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre appellations. He firmly believed in the concept of terroir, which emphasizes the influence of a vineyard's unique environmental factors on the character of the wine. He meticulously selected the best vineyard sites and used biodynamic farming practices to showcase the terroir's expression in his wines.
Known for his innovation, Dagueneau experimented with various winemaking techniques to achieve the purest expression of Sauvignon Blanc. He used oak barrels, but not to add oak flavors to the wine; instead, he sought to enhance texture and complexity without overshadowing the fruit and terroir characteristics.
One of the hallmarks of Didier Dagueneau's wines was his focus on vineyards with Silex soil, a flinty and mineral-rich soil type found in the region. Wines produced from these vineyards exhibited a unique smoky and mineral character that set them apart from other Sauvignon Blancs.
Some of Dagueneau's most renowned wines include "Silex," "Pur Sang," and "Buisson Renard." These wines consistently received high praise from wine critics and connoisseurs and were highly sought-after in the global wine market.
After Didier Dagueneau's untimely death, his son, Benjamin Dagueneau, continued his father's legacy, taking over the winemaking duties and ensuring the continuation of the family's esteemed wine tradition.
Pouilly-Fumé
Pouilly-Fumé is a famous white Sauvignon Blanc appellation located on the right bank of the Loire River.
Compared to Sancerre on the opposite bank, the Pouilly-Fumé appellation is approximately half the size at 1,200 hectares, and tightly-focused around the villages of St Andelain and Les Loges on a fairly homogeneous, south-west facing slope. The appellation's soils are divided between limestone-rich Kimmeridgean and Portlandian (less active calcium) clay, with the cherry on the cake being the red, flinty clay soils clustered around the St Andelain knoll.
Top vineyards in Pouilly-Fumé include Les Cocques, Les Bois and Les Cornets. The result is a floral, finely-poised yet powerful nose, with a noticeably limestone-like dry palate kept taut by a fine structure. Indeed such is the stony intensity of a good Pouilly-Fumé that an increasing number of producers are ageing their best crus in French oak, to good effect.
Recommmended producers: Didier Dagueneau, Alain Cailbourdin, André Dezat and the up-and-coming Nicolas Gaudry
Sauvignon Blanc
An important white grape in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley that has now found fame in New Zealand and now Chile. It thrives on the gravelly soils of Bordeaux and is blended with Sémillon to produce fresh, dry, crisp Bordeaux Blancs, as well as more prestigious Cru Classé White Graves.
It is also blended with Sémillon, though in lower proportions, to produce the great sweet wines of Sauternes. It performs well in the Loire Valley and particularly on the well-drained chalky soils found in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, where it produces bone dry, highly aromatic, racy wines, with grassy and sometimes smoky, gunflint-like nuances.
In New Zealand, Cloudy Bay in the 1980s began producing stunning Sauvignon Blanc wines with extraordinarily intense nettly, gooseberry, and asparagus fruit, that set Marlborough firmly on the world wine map. Today many producers are rivalling Cloudy Bay in terms of quality and Sauvignon Blanc is now New Zealand`s trademark grape.
It is now grown very successfully in Chile producing wines that are almost halfway between the Loire and New Zealand in terms of fruit character. After several false starts, many South African producers are now producing very good quality, rounded fruit-driven Sauvignon Blancs.
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Description
The only wine in the range that is a blend of fruit from more than one vineyard – one third from marl and two thirds from flinty soil over a richer clay base. From younger vines, and the most accessible of the Domaine’s wines when young. This is a very pure, crisp and focused expressed of Sauvignon Blanc. While the gooseberry and verbena characters of the grape are present, this has much, much more. From tropical pineapple, to fleshy stone fruit and glorious refreshing acidity. There is a smokiness echoed by mineral, lime rich finish that lingers.
If you enjoy any of the top New Zealand Sauvignons (Cloudy Bay, Dog Point et al), Sancerre or Pouilly-Fumé then these wines should be categorised as ‘must buys’, they are truly excellent examples of what is possible with Sauvignon Blanc.
Laura Atkinson-Godwin, Private Account Manager
Established and forged into one of the world’s top Domaines by larger-than-life Didier Dagueneau, the estate has been run by his son Louis-Benjamin and daughter Charlotte following his father’s untimely death in 2008. Louis-Benjamin has continued very much in his father’s footsteps, with intense focus and complete dedication to producing wines that many consider to be the ultimate expression of Sauvignon Blanc.
Their vineyards are worked meticulously following organic principles with great attention to detail in the winery includes a finely-tuned element of ageing in large oak barrels to produce wines that Louis-Benjamin describes as a ‘compromise between richness and freshness’. The wines have been described as pushing the concept of terroir to the extreme.
Critics have always marvelled at the wines from both Didier and now from Louis-Benjamin, Andrew Jefford didn’t hold back: “His (Didier Dagueneau’s) wines smelled not of Sauvignon Blanc ... but of spring, like standing beneath a waterfall:
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