Sancerre: Finding Its Place 

BY REBECCA GIBB MW | AUGUST 30, 2022

Whatever you do, don’t mention Sauvignon Blanc in Sancerre. The grape responsible for its entire production of white wine; the variety behind this hilltop town’s global success and the region’s prosperity. After all, what has Sauvignon Blanc ever done for them? The aromatic grape variety seems to be the dirty secret of Sancerre – it’s a necessary evil but no one wants to talk about it, and absolutely no one wants their wine to taste of the variety. You have to feel sorry for Sauvignon – it is the vehicle that is transporting the region – and few give it the respect it is due. Demand outstrips supply, and the rest of the Loire Valley can only look on in envy at Sancerre’s export success and the luxury cars that come with that.

The village of Chavignol is famous not only for its goat cheese but two of the appellation’s most esteemed lieux-dits, Les Monts Damnés and Les Culs de Beaujeu.

What local wine growers really want to discuss is their many parcels and soil types. Or rugby. The local team is filled with winemakers, which is visible in the high density of cauliflower ears and thick necks in the cellars. The wine producers of the Côte d’Or wish to be seen as the birthplace of terroir and the original home of the climat – vineyards that have proven themselves to have a distinct microclimate over centuries – but it seems that Sancerre, a small hilltop town 130 miles to the west of Beaune, beat them to it by around 200 years. In Les Terroirs Sancerrois, an extensively researched book on the history, geology and culture of the appellation, written by Thibaut Boulay, an associate professor at the François Rabelais University in Tours and son of famed Chavignol wine producer Gérard Boulay, the facts are laid out: specific vineyard parcels including the famed Monts Damnés and Clos de Beaujeu were differentiated and recorded as early as the 14th century, but the Burgundians’ first mention of a climat was in 1584.  

While the Burgundians pushed on with the slicing and dicing of the Côte d’Or’s vineyards and implementing a cru system, the Sancerrois never quite managed to formalize a similar classification. Nevertheless, in the past 25 years, Sancerre drinkers will have noticed wine labels becoming increasingly detailed. The use of vineyard names has proliferated, particularly those of lieux-dits. In her Master of Wine research paper “Sancerre’s single vineyard wines versus formal cru classification systems: An investigation of Les Monts Damnés, Les Culs de Beaujeu, and Chêne Marchand”, Catherine Petrie highlights that you could count the number of producers using these lieux-dits on their labels on two hands in the early 1990s, but you’d probably need a full soccer squad to record the number of wines mentioning vineyard names today. With more than 400 individual sites across the appellation, the scope is endless.

In 2021, there will be fewer cuvees due to low yields, says the general manager of Famille Bourgeois, Arnaud Bourgeois.

The Price of Place