Supreme Sancerre from Vacheron & Mellot

Sancerre.

When done right, it is one of the wine world’s finest white wines. Today, we’re doing the right thing and featuring Sancerre done right, from two of its premier producers.

It’s a delicate balance, how to inject the Sauvignon (Blanc) grape with intensity and richness without sacrificing those wonderful, snappy, turbo-charged, mouth-watering acids and minerality.

Both of these cats do it, with an unmatched grace and style.

The Vacheron family has been turning heads in Sancerre for over a century or, well, at least at the start their fruit did. They were Pinot Noir pioneers in the area, their Sancerre Rouge Belle Dame, featured below, considered one of the finest!

Nowadays brothers Denis and Jean-Louis run the Vacheron winery as we know it today, sharing many of its duties. Denis today is the president of the Sancerre appellation, and is especially involved in managing the family's vineyard holdings. As of 2006, the family tends 25 acres of Pinot Noir, and acres of Sauvignon Blanc. Jean-Louis managed the family cellars; today you will still find him there, tasting from cask as well as pouring samples of their award-winning wines for visitors.

Denis' son Jean-Laurent, 32 years old, started working full-time at the estate in 2002. Well trained by both his father as well as by his experiences abroad (he spent a few years in California assisting Aubert de Villaine with his own estate there), Jean-Laurent, with his cousin Jean-Dominique (son of Jean-Louis), truly do everything at the certified biodynamic estate.

The domaine’s 2012 Sancerre Les Romains comes from a single vineyard of older Sauvignon planted on 50-million-year-old flint soils. Aged in a mix of steel and larger wooden vats, it is a benchmark wine of the appellation. Wine Advocate called it, “Full-bodied, clear and piquant on the palate this pure, powerful and salty Sancerre develops a serious complexity and length with lemon, lime and grapefruit aromas as well in the ethereal aftertaste.”

Vacheron’s Sancerre Rouge Belle Dame 2010, as stated earlier, is a true delight and a pinnacle for the genre from a fantastic vintage for Loire Valley Pinot Noir. Burgundy lovers should pounce on this one. Big ‘93’ from Wine Advocate here, who remarked the wine was, “…remarkably precise ripe aromas of red berries (wild strawberries), rock cherries, figs and rosehip along with floral, malty and ethereal as well as meaty flavors. Full-bodied, juicy and impressively intense on the palate and structured by finest yet firm tannins and an extremely delicate acidity this is an excellent and persistent Pinot Noir character made from perfectly ripe and processed fruits.”

Alphonse Mellot’s Domaine de la Moussiere is 70 acres of super Sauvignon, also cultivated organic and biodynamic, from which he culls a number of extraordinary, limited cuvees, two of which we’re offering today.

Mellot’s 2012 Sancerre La Demoiselle is off the charts. Here we’re talking 60+ year-old vines and ten months aging in large oak vats. Simple winemaking. Wine Advocate chucked a monster 93+ score at this one (the ‘+’ is for potential evolution in bottle as this is one of the more long-lived cuvees in Sancerre) with the following prose, “Precise, mineral and fresh, with flavors of citrus, orange peels, (field) floral and herbal aromas on the nose this is a rich, multi-layered and…almost juicy/creamy Sancerre although it does not get lost on its salty and crystalline road. La Demoiselle is a piquant and mineral-accentuated wine of great expression, tension, depth and elegance.”

Finally, the ne plus ultra, Mellot’s Sancerre Generation XIX 2012 is one for the books. How they build this much richness into the wine and ally it with such tension is beyond me. I guess it’s the old, old vines or maybe it’s the aging in 900 liter conical oak vats for a year prior to bottling. All I know is Sancerre does not get any better.

Wine Advocate’s Stephan Reinhardt raved, “The 2012 Sancerre Géneration Dix-Neuf is an extraordinary Sancerre from 100-year-old vines on calcareous marl soils...It needs, like all wines from this producer, some hours to open up its multi-layered bouquet of ripe, almost tropical fruit aromas (mango, plums, rockmelon), which reveals not just purity but also nutty and mineral flavors of almonds, limes, white fruits, brown bread and farina. The depth, complexity and concentration of the aromas is quite unique and so is the palate. This is most of all a very rich, well-balanced and elegant concentrate of Sancerre with an amazing freshness, length and salinity. The lingering juiciness is voluptuous, but at the same time firmly structured, vibrant and very mineral–so very serious and far away from this modern sexiness in wine that’s more often than not superficial and, finally, boring. Already accessible, you can also store this delicious wine for eight years or almost a decade. 95 points.”

Stocks are limited, especially on the Magnums, so act fast for best selection…