David Sautereau has defied the challenging 2016 vintage with this outstanding wine, a magnifcent weave of Sancerre's ancient soils. A flinty grip lends to tension and backbone to a beautifully concentrated mid-palate, which rejoices in fresh, cool, green fruit, followed by a gently leafy and evocative finish.
Simon Field MW - Wine Buyer, June 2017

Situated in the village of Crézancy 7km from the town of Sancerre, the 18ha Domaine Sautereau has been producing Sancerres for nine generations. Winemaker David Sautereau uses a blend of age-old practices and modern techniques to show the terroir characteristics of Sancerre at their best. A cool fermentation ensures a particularly pure, fruity style while three months on the lees provide extra complexity and richness.

After the flinty and cerebral 2014, David Sautereau has tamed the potentially indulgent ripeness of the generous and fulsome 2015 season with his customary understated skill. This is very fine indeed, zesty and linear, garlanded by herbs and verbena and luxuriating in the silky profundity of a mid-palate which marries the exotic and the restrained, stone-fruit austerity with peachy provocation.

High yields for the 2014 vintage had no negative impact on fruit quality in Sancerre, and who better to make the most of such a benevolent vintage than the Dezat brothers (all five of them)? Aromas of lime, greengage, nettles and – well – white Sancerre; but its impeccable balance sets this above the vast majority of the appellation’s other wines. There’s also an appealing sense of discretion to it, as there is to everything the Dezats produce. Would be utterly marvellous with a goats cheese salad; no less so with fish finger sandwiches.
Will Heslop, Wine Buying

Pouilly-Fumé, La Rambarde, Domaine Landrat-Guyollot, Loire
The Landrat-Guyollot family have been viticulturalists in the region of Nivers since 1686. Trade increased to Paris once the river Loire became navigable, from the 16th century onwards, with families such as the Landrat-Guyollots using dinghies (les rambardes) to ferry wine to the capital.
Current winemaker Sophie represents the family’s 10th generation. Today the estate has 16.5 hectares across the region, all vinified with no oak.

Fitting the Fumé profile to a T, with its struck-flint smokiness, this is a brilliant example from the Loire. The limpid colour matches the clarity of the citrus and white stone-fruits which create a harmony with the mineral notes.

One of the most respected Loire estates, the Dezat family's 38 hectares cover six villages in Sancerre and four in Pouilly-Fumé. Simon and Louis Dezat represent the fourth generation, taking the domaine to new heights by making incremental changes to improve the wine. More time is now spent in the vineyard, fine-tuning the vines, while a sorting table has been recently adopted to select only the healthiest fruit. Their ripe, understated Sancerre delivers year-in, year-out.

A cool, refined mineral nose shows subtle hints of leafiness and green fruit. This wine has great purity and restraint as is the style of André Dezat’s whites.
The body is reasonably full thanks to the warm summer of the 2015 vintage but the wine does not show tropical notes, instead it focuses on fresh citrus aromas, culminating in a delicately mineral finish. Perfect with goats’ cheese salad or poached trout.

A classically pure and restrained white true to Andre Dezat’s style. It shows nuances of chalk and smoky flint on the nose and the palate has a lovely zing with leafy gooseberry and citrus fruit, moving to a pleasingly long and clean finish focussing on smoky minerality. The clement 2015 vintage has provided a reasonable full body and therefore this will be the perfect partner to meaty white fish such as Monkfish or Halibut.

A surprisingly full body leads the parade for this richly scented Pinot Noir. The nose shows both red and dark berries which are lovely and fresh on the palate. The 18 months in oak bring spice, especially black pepper and the whole is framed by a delicious herbal note. Serve with roast lamb, duck or Daniel’s own recommendation: chocolate puddings. The Chotard holdings consist of 12 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc and 4 of Pinot Noir; red wine is not of inconsiderable significance to them therefore. The Pinot is destemmed and has a two week fermentation, the majority thereafter aged in tank, with the merest whisper ( 2%) of barrique employed. The purity of the red fruit character has a gently spicy backdrop. The identity of the singing archer is a little more cryptic however, I must remember to ask Simeon on my next visit!
Simon Field MW – Wine Buyer

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.

The parcels of vines which make-up Didier's 'Silex' cuvee must be among his most coveted: great boulders of flint, old vines and perfect St. Andelain sites combine to deliver a voluminous and brilliantly pure wine of stature.

Just as Les Culs de Beaujeu is all about quiet velvety charm, so Les Monts Damnes is very much the crunchy one; broad, square quivering, it's perhaps Francois's most classic expression of Sancerre wine. In 2009 there's a marzipan richness about this wine, balanced by a distinctly pebble nettle character.

Francois Cotat has four plots among this large but consistently fine vineyard; a vineyard that stretches the breadth of the village's eastern escarpment, so facing west. Containing vines of approx. 30 yo, it's a wine that will grow grow, but should be drinkable from 2014/5.

The 2009 vintage was influenced by hail, draught hence an earlier smaller than average harvest, this is one of those rich sunny years where the personality of the vintage comes through stronger than that of the vineyard. Though Francois Cotat's 2009s come in at c. 15% abv they are balanced by the inherent minerality of his exceptional vineyards. (Such has been the climatic change that Francois hasn't needed to chaptalise since the 2004 vintage.)

Francois Cotat continues to make wine as his father Paul did; the domaine being born out of the split with Pascal Cotat in 1988. Francois joined the tiny but perfectly sited property in 1999, continuing to hand-harvest the fruit that is then vinified using wild yeasts aged in 80 yo oak barrels without any intervention. Francois reasons that the use of wild as opposed to selected yeasts enable his to be more digestible reflective of their origins. Neither fined nor filtered Francois continues to judicious levels of sulphur to guide the wines to full maturity. He follows the lunar cycle.
(David Berry Green) 

Clean, fresh, nose. Grapefruit. Nice concentration of citrus fruit. Crisp, correct and mineral. Good acidity. Tension. Not exactly what one has come to expect from François Cotat in recent vintages, yet a clear demonstration (and vindication) of the decision to pick earlier this year, but by no means a simple or frivolous wine. An excellent example of Sancerre.
Adam Bruntlett 

Showing pretty white peach, this is a relaxed wine with detailed aromas, reflected on a suave, spellbindingly silky & effortless palate. It may be the early drinking Sauvignon Blanc of the Cotat range yet it’s on another planet in terms of finesse & detail when compared to other producers who label their wines as ‘Sancerre’, probably on account of lower yields, hand-picked harvest and the use of natural/wild yeasts! Drinking from 2014 to 2022. David Berry Green 

Richer, ‘bigger’ nose than Les Caillottes Anise/fennel. A step up in concentration. Excellent balance of acidity and fruit. Mineral, with outstanding potential. Still a little closed but excellent length. Very little sugar, less than 3g/l. Most immediately appealing of the selection.
Adam Bruntlett
 
Francois’s Monts Damnés is clearly the best example of this famous Sancerre Cru! Faithful to the nervy vintage, this wine is cool, compact, a taut, tightly coiled core of briny minerality, such tension, his use of old oak in vinification giving this wine a spectacular Island malt saltiness, very succinct, needs time, plenty of time, drinking from 2015 to 2025.
David Berry Green