2022 Gerard Boulay Comtesse Sancerre, Loire Valley

This rare bottling comes from just 0.40 hectares of 70-year-old vines in the Comtesse lieu-dit at the chalky epicentre of Les Monts-Damnés. For hundreds of years or more, this vineyard has been considered by locals to be the finest single terroir of Chavignol. In his Le Vignoble de Chavignol, Thibaut Boulay reminds us that at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878, Comtesse was already considered a true star of the Sancerrois, its wines being served on the most renowned tables of northern France. As another marker of its historical reverence, the Comtesse parcel was only grafted after 1945; before that, it remained the last ungrafted white vineyard in France, as La Romanée-Conti was for red grapes.

The soil composition is pure Kimmeridgian limestone and consists of a miserly 30 to 40-cm layer of topsoil over solid limestone bedrock. This brings intense minerality and warmth as the rocky soil absorbs the sun’s heat and irradiates it at night. Therefore, it’s a site that always produces fully ripe fruit and intense freshness—hence the historical fame.

This has the diamond-cut clarity allied to perfectly ripe fruit intensity that is a hallmark of this release—and there’s also something more elemental. Again, the sunny season has done nothing to blunt the razor-edge precision of this grower’s Sancerre. Marked by the soil rather than the sun, this wine often incorporates the best elements of all the vineyards above. It has a seductive texture and nectarine-like fruit, yet also thoroughbred restraint, great line, mineral clarity, and box-office chalky length. A Grand Cru in all but name, 20 years will not weary this astonishing young Sancerre.