2009 Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, Silex, Domaine Didier Dagueneau, Loire
Critics reviews
From an enclave just outside the cuverie in Saint Andelain, the Dagueneau 2009 Blanc Fumé de Pouilly Silex delivers an almost inordinate diversity of floral, herbal, citrus (predominately grapefruit), and pit-fruit (predominately nectarine) elements, with the bitterness of fruit pits, smoky pungency of red currant and crushed stone, as well as notes of shrimp shell reduction and iodine inflecting a long, bittersweet, yet at the same time vibrant, buoyant finish. This silken textured seducer should gain with time in bottle and be worth following for ten or a dozen years.
David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate (August 2010)
Intensely aromatic – straight up the nose! Almost raw it’s so wild and unformed. Not yet anything like fully developed. I’d wait for quite a while. All angular and flailing about.
Jancis Robinson MW, JancisRobinson.com (June 2012)
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.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
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Description
From an enclave just outside the cuverie in Saint Andelain, the Dagueneau 2009 Blanc Fumé de Pouilly Silex delivers an almost inordinate diversity of floral, herbal, citrus (predominately grapefruit), and pit-fruit (predominately nectarine) elements, with the bitterness of fruit pits, smoky pungency of red currant and crushed stone, as well as notes of shrimp shell reduction and iodine inflecting a long, bittersweet, yet at the same time vibrant, buoyant finish. This silken textured seducer should gain with time in bottle and be worth following for ten or a dozen years.
David Schildknecht, Wine Advocate (August 2010)
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