After two quick bends you will find yourself on a long avenue lined with trees, and suddenly the landscape is now blanketed with emerald-green vines. The road cuts clean and straight through the French countryside, cleaving the expanse of wheat and woodland into two. Today the world is full of attractive wines made using this variety, but few possess the floral aromatics, minerally drive and acid tension that can be found in a glass of white Sancerre from one of the region’s leading vignerons, and as a consequence its pre-eminent position as a reference point for this variety remains secure.Īpproaching Sancerre from the southwest, after a long drive up from the vineyards of Vouvray, you perhaps gain some sense of the town’s significance. Many have set out to imitate it, but few have come anywhere close. Its wines enjoy a global reputation, and they provide the world of wine with a benchmark style for Sauvignon Blanc. Sancerre’s significance, both emblematically and economically, should thus not be underestimated. Sancerre, though, remains an appellation permanently on the up, and it is as successful today (or perhaps even more so) than it was ten, twenty or thirty years ago. But of course Muscadet’s fame has faltered and fractured over the years, and it has required a degree of rebuilding and repair. While committed fans of the region and its wines will argue the merits of other Ligérian heavyweights such as Chinon or Vouvray, in terms of international fame I think perhaps only Muscadet can really square up to Sancerre. One of the most famous appellations in all France, it is no coincidence that it was the wines of Sancerre that first enticed me to explore the Loire Valley and its many vineyards in more detail.
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