Loire offers levels of complexity to enjoy

As the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc fad continues to fade, the traditional home of Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire Valley of France is as strong as it has ever been.

We often feature the wines and regions that sit on the Kimmeridgian chain from Champagne in the north, down through Chablis and along the eastern part of the Loire Valley. In no small part, it is because we are in a seaside town, and they provide fantastic matches for seafood. Today we turn our attention to Sancerre. While many will have tried Sancerre, some will know exactly where it is and what is grown there, many may not know that it is Sauvignon Blanc in the bottle.

The Sauvignon Blanc of Sancerre is a world away from the Sauvignon Blanc that many will have come to anchor their perception on from Marlborough; highly aromatic, showing all kinds of grassy, herbaceous characters through to the intense ripe tropical fruit sweetness. Place a glass of Sancerre in front of you and if you weren’t told what it was, you would not look silly saying it was Chablis or a similarly light, crisp minerally white.

Both are fair and true expressions of the grape, but to an extent express the difference in philosophy between the ‘Old World’ and ‘New World’ producers. The herbaceous characters and tropical fruits of a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc are certainly unique characters of the grape, characters that are often emphasised by the New World producers who focus on varietal expression and fruit forwardness, while the Old World has a history of aiming to express place before grape.

If you pick up a bottle of Sancerre, you are unlikely to even see the grape variety mentioned. It is the benefit of having had hundreds of years to refine exactly where to plant, how to grow and how to make the wines that reflects the combination of soil, climate and grape that these producers can so clearly zero in on particular sites to bottle. It is also just how unique and uniquely suited to viticulture their soils are.

The Chalky Kimmeridgian soils are unique in the wine world and provide the perfect balance between water retention and porosity such that it can hold water when necessary but also shed it efficiently and allow for the roots to dig deeply with relative ease. Combine this with the fossilised sea life and the impact is wines of intense minerality, a nervy tension that runs the length of the palate and so often draws you in for another glass where the simple crisp high acidity of many Marlborough grown wines will be refreshing but short-lived.

While there is no proven way for the mineral-rich soils to actually transfer the intense mineral elements in to a wine, wines grown on these unique soils certainly feel a little more profound, as if they have an extra level or three of complexity to give without having to add the weight of winemaking techniques which are often used to build texture and complexity.

Pierre Maudry Sancerre ‘Tradition’ 2015 – $39.99
2015 was a warm year in Sancerre and yielded wines with a riper, softer fruit spectrum. This makes for wines that may be a better introduction for drinkers stepping across from the familiarity of fruit forward new world wines. This example certainly shows ripe tropical fruits, but they are so well integrated in a wine that retains lovely juicy citrus driven acidity given the year. You get a feel for how composed and seamless these wines can be from start to finish.