PRODUCER OF THE YEAR + Join Our Bimonthly (One Bottle Selection) Club ‘THE CHAMPAGNE SOCIETY’. Or Gift It for the Holidays (6- or 12-Month Membership)

Stéphane Riffault
Le Métronome*

*”Our 25 Signature Domaines of The Year.” Guides des Vins 2020, Bettane+Desseauve:

“When you think of Sancerre, you absolutely have to mention Stéphane Riffault. Measure, attention and reflection forge high-flying and stylish cuvées; each reflecting the personality of its terroir. Everything here exudes excellence.”

A Veritable Revolution in Sancerre
Stéphane Riffault is Creating Wines of Texture,
that are Singular, and True to Themselves.
Ten-Bottle Sampler Pack $399
(Two Red, Seven White & One Rosé)

A communion with the soil is the most important relationship a winemaker will ever forge, and nowhere is this demonstrated more reliably than in Sancerre, where three distinct soil types produce a split-personality of wine characteristics. This may be something of well-kept secret, as the name ‘Sancerre’—even to experienced wine drinkers—often exists as a single, all-encompassing concept limited to crisp, bone-dry, citrus-scented Sauvignon Blancs.

Sancerre, as it happens, is a wealth of subtleties from commune to commune, vineyard to vineyard, lieu-dit to lieu-dit, just as it is in Burgundy.

Elie’s 2024’s Producer of the Year is Stéphane Riffault, owner of Domaine Claude Riffault, one of Sancerre’s most innovative young winemakers. He works 33 different parcels and eight different lieux-dits spread across four Sancerrois villages. Riffault’s bottled overview of Sancerre’s triumvirate of soils, as well his mastery of balancing minerality and wood is a feat rarely duplicated anywhere else in the appellation.

Our year-end portfolio of Riffault’s work is a beautiful introduction to a side of Sancerre’s personality with which you may not be familiar.

Sancerre: Sauvignon Blanc is Only Part of The Story

Rumors that Sancerre is synonymous with Sauvignon Blanc have been greatly exaggerated. That said, no credible wine scholar will deny that the stars aligning between Sancerre’s terroir and the blonde scioness of the Val de Loire is a remarkable gift to us all. Just as the Loire River runs through the heart of France, Sancerre pierces the heart of summertime and Sauvignon Blanc grown among the brush, gravel and layers of Cretaceous soils provides an unadorned synthesis of the scents we associate with the easy season: Cut grass, Meyer lemon, tart hedgerow berries and petrichor—the incomparable aroma of raindrops on stone.

80% of the grapes grown in Sancerre are Sauvignon Blanc, so it is no wonder that this varietal dominates the market, especially in the United States. But nearly 20% is Pinot Noir, and it’s a fact that prior to phylloxera, Sancerre was best known for its red wines. Not only that, but in that not-so-distant past, the whites were rarely made from Sauvignon Blanc, but from Chasselas, which is still grown in small pockets.

When the diabolical little phylloxera louse decimated the vineyard of Sancerre (along with much of Europe) they were replanted with Sauvignon Blanc, which was more responsive to the requisite remedy—American root stock.

One thing did not change: The almost clichéd emphasis Sancerre places on purity. This is a result of two factors: First, the region is relatively far north, so a hallmark of nearly all Sancerre—red, white or pink—is its bright acidity—preserved in the grapes by cool nights and temperate days. The pH of a wine determines its mouthfeel, and the higher the acidity, the more sizzling is the sensation of freshness and clarity on the palate, often described as ‘purity.’

Of equal importance, very little oak is used in the maturation process of wines from Sancerre, and the flavors associated with oak—butter, clove, vanilla and caramel—however desirable in Burgundy—tend to mask some of the fruit-driven notes. It’s one of the reasons that oak-free Chablis is considered the purest incarnation of Chardonnay, and likewise, the neutral barrel or stainless steel/cement aging of Sancerre’s Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir and occasionally Gamay offers the best results for preserving the natural flavors inherent in the juice.

Soil Matters: Sancerrois Trilogy

Every cliché-driven wine writer on the planet will tell you that in order to make superb wine you must begin with superb grapes, and every conscientious winemaker on earth will tell you that to grow those grapes you need superb soil. And few appellations the size of Sancerre (roughly 7000 acres) are more narrowly defined by three unique variations on that theme, and this is a point of pride for Sancerre’s winegrowers.

First, are the silex soils, which extend southward from Saint-Satur to Thauvenay. Silex soils contain flint (‘silex’ is what the British call this sedimentary form of quartz); such soils form over millennia as limestone erodes to dust and much harder stones are left in its wake. Flint leaves an interesting imprint on Sauvignon Blanc; the wines are elegant and finely-etched with distinctive citrus and herbal notes, but most prominent is the spark/smoke character that the French call ‘pierre à fusil’—literally, gunflint. The smoky minerality that is so prized in tasting notes is far more evident in silex soils than those chalkier wines grown in limestone—silex wines attain a nearly indefinable quality of precision, like the edge of an arrowhead.

Next is the Kimmeridgian marl found on Sancerre’s westernmost hills (as well as in Chablis Grand Crus and many great Champagne terroirs). It is a mixture of limestone and clay that formed eons ago as the final resting place of the famous comma-shaped oyster, Exogyra virgula. Their fossilized shells (quite visible in many stones from the region) left the soils rich in calcium carbonate. Amazingly, wines from this prehistoric graveyard produce wines in which the now-evaporated sea—in the form of a briny undertow, or saltiness—can clearly be tasted. Kimmeridgian marl is known locally as ‘terres blanches’ because the chalky clay turns white in dry periods.

Sancerre’s Oxfordian limestone soils are perhaps less heralded but they are arguably more important because they produce the bulk of the ‘entry-level’ early-drinking Sancerres that—in the public perception—may better typify the region. That is not to say that, in the right hands, they cannot produce wines of great subtlety, as proven by Stéphane Riffault, whose Sury-en-Vaux estate sits (in part) on a ribbon of Oxfordian. These are stone-filled soils, but unlike silex soils, there’s little flint and unlike Kimmeridgian, there is little clay. Instead, the rocky subsurface is filled with two distinct types of stone, caillottes, which are sizable pebbles and Griottes, which are much smaller. Oxfordian limestone tends to run north-south from Sainte-Gemme down through Bué and below.

Domaine Claude Riffault

When Stéphane Riffault took over Domaine Claude Riffault from his father Claude, he brought with him a tool kit earned in a number of contrasting appellations, having studied and trained with Olivier Leflaive in Burgundy and at Château Angélus in Bordeaux. This broader view informed the core, hands-on education he received from his father at the domain. Among the rather ‘un-Sancerre-like’ methods he brought to the estate was hand-harvesting and extensive sorting before the crush; Stéphane’s wife Benedicte leads the harvest team while Stéphane manages the sorting and press during harvest.

Meanwhile, among the conclusions at which he arrived on his own is that sustainability is key to the future. As such, all 33 of his vineyard acres are organic (Ecocert, 2016) and biodynamic (Biodyvin, 2021).

Stéphane Riffault, Domaine Claude Riffault

All good winemakers seem to be equal parts dirt-farmer and metaphysical philosopher, and Stéphane is no exception: “Being a winegrower and winemaker demands commitment, risk and continual self-questioning,” he maintains. “You have to know how to adapt in order to stay dynamic. Improvement requires perpetual movement, and what drives me is the creation of wines of texture; wines that are singular and true to themselves.”

Although most of the Riffault’s holdings are planted on the soft limestone soil called ‘terres blanches’, he farms a handful of parcels on caillottes and silex; thus, he has developed a keen understanding of the qualities that each unique terroir brings to an individual wine. He employs oak moderately to add length to his already-precise, site-expressive and highly delineated bottlings.

All his parcels are vinified separately, and (except for the rosé), all are bottled unfiltered.

White Sancerre: Lieux-dits Tell Their Story

As someone trained in Burgundy (and whose brother Benoît is the winemaker at Domaine Etienne Sauzet in Puligny-Montrachet), you might expect Stéphane Riffault to have a particular affinity for lieux-dits—those unique parcels of vineyards so singular in expression that they have their own names. This is absolutely the case, and there is more: The Crus of Burgundy may be well-mapped and understood, but far less so are the vineyards and lieux-dits of Sancerre. Riffault considers them among France’s finest terroirs, able to produce great white wines not of stature and complexity, but of individual identity. As such, he is making it his mission to champion eight parcels among the 33 plots he currently works as part of an exacting showcase stratospheric Sancerres seen from a near-microscopic perspective.

 1  Domaine Claude Riffault, 2022 Sancerre ‘Les Denisottes’ Blanc ($44)
Les Denisottes is a three-acre plot located near Riffault’s Sury-en-Vaux estate and is composed of three individual southeast-facing plots at nearly a thousand feet in altitude. The vines (between 40 and 50 years old) are rooted in deep Kimmeridgian limestone. The juice fermented spontaneously and was aged on lees for 14 months in multi-layer wooden barrels with sporadic bâtonnage and no malolactic fermentation, producing a wine loaded with citrus zest, green apple tartness and a distinct flinty minerality.

 2 Domaine Claude Riffault, 2022 Sancerre ‘Les Chailloux’ Blanc ($44)
Les Chailloux is a unique site in the village of Sury-en-Vaux. While silex soils are common in the neighboring Pouilly-Fumé and the eastern edge of Sancerre, it is fairly scarce in the northwestern part of Sancerre. Stéphane Riffault farms about three acres of vines in this lieu-dit, which produces concentrated and opulent wine, yet racy and intensely saline and capable of aging gracefully for many years.

 3 Domaine Claude Riffault, 2022 Sancerre ‘Les Chasseignes’ Blanc ($39)
Les Chasseignes is an east/southeast facing lieu-dit that sits at nearly 900 feet in altitude. Planted on gravelly limestone soils, the wine opens with a greenish, refreshing bouquet and gains considerably in complexity upon aeration, becoming round and elegant and finishing with savory notes.

 4 Domaine Claude Riffault, 2022 Sancerre ‘Les Boucauds’ Blanc ($35)
From a top parcel in Sury-en-Vaux; the 2022 Boucauds is a blend of both Burgundy barrels (several from Etienne Sauzet in Puligny-Montrachet) and larger oak formats. Because of the deep clay and limestone soils, Les Boucauds always has great mouthfeel and depth, as opposed to Stéphane’s silex and caillottes parcels which are more linear and austere in their youth. Sourced from several Les Boucauds plots, this cuvée employs close to half of all the Sauvignon Blanc planted on the estate.

 5 Domaine Claude Riffault ‘Mosaïque Calcaire’, 2023 Sancerre Blanc ($33)
In 2018 Stéphane Riffault made the decision to release a village-level Sancerre after additional plantings on limestone terroirs that he has undertaken over the last decade. It also includes some fruit from Les Boucauds and Les Chasseignes along with eighteen other parcels. Like all good Sancerre, this wine is supple and nearly succulent, filled with tropical notes besides the melon and pear foundation. It is rich, but remains light on its feet behind gentle acidity.

6  Domaine Claude Riffault ‘Monoparcelle 469’, 2022 Sancerre ($53)
Monoparcelle 469, in the ‘Les Sentiers’ plot represents a southeast-facing acre of 54-year-old massale-selection Sauvignon Blanc planted on a shallow terre blanche; this is a wine that shows what a barrel-aged Sancerre can display. It is filled with nuanced, terroir-driven notes of iodine, lemon rind and crushed limestones above a lingering salinity.

 7  Domaine Claude Riffault ‘Monoparcelle 538’, 2022 Sancerre ($53)
‘Les Desmalets’ is a tiny (slightly more than a single acre) that encompasses the fullest-bodied terroir Stéphane Riffault farms—so much so that he blends most of it into his village Sancerre and reserves its oldest vines for this profoundly expressive and age-worthy micro-cuvée. It contains 47-year-old massale-selection Sauvignon Blanc planted on a shallow Kimmeridgian limestone. The fruit is hand-harvested and fermented in French oak foudres, then aged for 18 months in the same vessel. The wine is silky, rich and elegant showing Meyer lemon and orange peel and a nicely-integrated tannic grip.

Red Sancerre: Taking Cues from Burgundy

To look for a silver lining amid the global catastrophe of climate change is nearly sacrilegious—unless you are a fan of red wine from Sancerre. Despite its strong history in the appellation, red wine grapes (Pinot Noir, almost exclusively) once struggled to ripen, and when they did, did so erratically. In all but exceptional vintages, Sancerre reds had a reputation for being thin and somewhat weedy, and even the alchemy of elite producers like Domaine Claude Riffault tended to produce wines with obvious bell pepper notes—a telltale signature of under-ripe red grapes, and an issue that oak does not fix.

In 2014, a warming climate began to put some of these nagging problems in the rearview mirror. The growing season was not necessarily longer, but the diurnal temperature shifts—vital for maintaining a useable balance between sugars and acids—allowed Pinot Noir to ripen more completely and more evenly. The wisest producers began to rely on a Burgundian approach; vinifying individual parcels by terroir, relying on blends that may vary from year to year, and perhaps most importantly, rethinking the use of oak barrels, allowing them to accent rather than submerge the fruit.

And every year, the fruit is proving itself reliably worthy, showing the rich black cherry and cola notes lifted by acidity that we have come to expect in top Burgundies.

All this does not meliorate the downside of climate change, but if life hands you lemons, might as well become better acquainted with Sancerre’s now world-class Pinot Noirs.

 8 Domaine Claude Riffault, 2019 Sancerre ‘La Noue’ Rouge ($33)
La Noue is a six-acre plot of Pinot Noir on planted on Kimmeridge limestone, and here, Riffault’s Burgundian-trained touch is evident. The enticing tea like, garrigue-infused fragrance is followed by raspberry, blueberry and violet notes enrobed in silky tannins. As with all wines from Domaine Claude Riffault, the vines are cultivated according to organic and biodynamic guidelines. Manual harvesting is followed by 18 months of aging. Total production amounts to 10,630 bottles.

 9 Domaine Claude Riffault ‘M.T. Mise Tardive’, 2019 Sancerre ‘La Noue’ Rouge ($42)
‘Mise Tardive’ refers to a process in which the unbottled wine undergoes a longer élevage with extended lees aging. Divided into seven plots and ranging in age from 10 to 60 years old, Noue is the source for both Noue Rosé and Rouge. Stéphane’s Rouge shows his Burgundian-trained touch with this variety, one that preserves the light and delicate style of Pinot from Sancerre, but layered with a depth of red fruit and black tea flavors.

 10  Domaine Claude Riffault ‘La Noue’, 2023 Sancerre Rosé ($33)
‘La Noue’ is a six-acre plot of Pinot Noir grown on clay limestone and marl. Divided into seven plots and ranging in age from 10 to 60 years old it is the source for both Riffault’s Noue Rouge and his rosé. In particular, the rosé is a combination of juice bled off the Sancerre Rouge after a 6-12 hour maceration combined with direct press Pinot Noir. Cherry and citrus dominate the nose, while ripe strawberry notes appear on the palate.

Vintage Journal
Centre-Loire

The 2023 Vintage: A Winegrower’s Vintage

The winter of 2022/2023 was relatively mild in Sancerre and rolled into an equally benign spring, and although a few vines were touched by frost, it was nothing cataclysmic. Budburst was largely successful, and the gently rising temperatures proved idyllic for flowering, with yields promising to be high. June then brought a bout of hot, humid weather aggravated by frequent rain and disease pressure ran high; producers had to frequently spray and those who weren’t vigilant lost yields. That said, the heat pushed the grapes to phenolic ripeness signaling an early harvest.

Although a heatwave struck mid-summer, nights were cool, proving ideal for preserving the acidity and aromatics crucial to Sancerre, and despite a few large storms, the harvest was mostly picked fuss-free.

The 2022 Vintage: Freshness Underscores the Wines’ Definition and Poise, Too. A Promising Vintage.

Directly from the journal of Jean-Paul Labaille, owner and winemaker at Thomas-Labaille in Chavignol:

“Following the terrible frost that impacted our crop in 2021, it almost feels like 2022 was blessed from above. While it’s true that drought and hail impacted many vineyards this year and that the heavy rainfalls in June made it very challenging to work the soils, in the end the vines were balanced and we did not suffer the same amount of hydric stress felt by so many other regions. We even had some light rain in August and at the very beginning of harvest, giving us grapes of great quantity and quality. We began on September 5th, interrupted once on the 7th by a hail storm that touched the Northwest of the appellation. In Chavignol there were zero impacts. Qualitatively, we are in for a good vintage. The fermentations have been going well, with pH levels between 3.2 and 3.3, permitting us to keep a good amount of freshness. The alcohol will end up between 12.5 and 13.5, maybe as high at 13.7 on the Monts-Damnés. 2022 really reminds me of 2018, which is very promising!”

The 2019 & 2018 Vintages: The Twin Years

The back-to-back vintages 2018 and 2019 represent something of a climactic miracle. Even as a stand-alone, 2018 is considered to be one of the most exceptional vintages seen in the region for half a century. Taken together with a spectacular 2019, they are twin towers of triumph.

2018 began with fantastic spring that allowed for successful flowering and fruit set without any of the usual problems that normally occur with rain, hail or frost, and a hot summer developed the ripe semi-tropical flavors associated with the best Sauvignon Blanc. 2019 was a bit cooler, but produced grapes where the coveted acids that reign in aggressive fruit notes.

Tapping the source directly, Vacheron comments, “2018 and 2019 are very similar in the way they are constructed, even if the alcohol is slightly higher in 2018. The two vintages tend to show that it is possible to make wines that have good freshness despite low acidities because the minerality superseded the acidity. 2018 is without a doubt a vintage that will mark people’s memories, and will remain a reference in Sancerre. It’s the kind of vintage that helps grow a heightened generation of wine makers within their appellations.”

Holiday Gift
The Champagne Society Membership
6-Month ($299) or 12-Month ($589) Subscription.
Bimonthly Selection.

Champagne Enters ‘New Era’

Our brick-and-mortar may be in Birmingham, but here at Elie Wine, our eyes are always cast toward our spiritual home in French and Spanish wine country. Keeping up with the zeitgeist of vinology is a fascinating, ever-changing endeavor, and nowhere is this more true in Champagne, which has undergone more philosophical changes in the past two decades than in the past two centuries. Not only has a steadily warming planet offered once-marginal terroirs a chance to shine, the focus needle is gradually shifting to an appreciation of Champagne as, first and foremost, a wine. In a culture shift sometimes called the ‘Burgundianization of Champagne’, less attention is being paid to big-name brands (who will always have their share of the market) and more to relative newcomers who are showcasing the terroir of individual vineyards, and even plots within that vineyard, rather than simply lauding a Premier Cru village. There is no question that the quality of Champagne overall is improving with single-site expressions and riper grapes that still retain Champagne’s characteristic acidity.

Elie

Join The Champagne Society: A Bimonthly Selection of a Bottle and Sometimes Two.

As a member of The Champagne Society, you’re in a select community of like-minded folks who appreciate the exceptional in life and recognize that sparkling wine is a superlative among man’s culinary creations. A bottle of Champagne is selected for you bimonthly. You will be drinking some of the best Champagne ever produced.

All selected wines are from passionate grower-producers or small houses deeply connected to the subtleties of each of their vine parcels and who believe that wine is made in the vineyard. Many of these wines are highly allocated, many bought directly, and we quite often only have access to a few cases of a particular cuvée. For more information visit The Champagne Society webpage.

A Gift That Keeps On Giving: Membership Subscription To ‘The Champagne Society’

Lily Bollinger once said, “I only drink champagne when I’m happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I drink it when I’m alone. When I have company, I consider it obligatory; I trifle with it if I’m not in a hurry and drink it when I am, otherwise I never touch the stuff unless I am thirsty.”

Not only is Champagne the quintessential drink of celebration, it has traditionally been a gift given with ramped-up sentiments. This year we are offering a couple of variations on this theme, beginning with an opportunity to gift a special someone a six-month or twelve-month membership to The Champagne Society. Our pick for December will be packaged in a wrap-ready gift box along with a congratulatory certificate explaining what lies ahead in bi-monthly installments:

Six-Month Membership Gift ($299)

You will take home a pre-packaged, ready-for-gift-wrapping box containing The Champagne Society December two bottles Selection, Champagne Laherte Frères, with a certificate congratulating the recipient on their new membership to the Champagne Society, a select community of like-minded folks who appreciate the exceptional in life and recognize that wine is a superlative among man’s culinary creations. Then, in February and April, they are eligible to receive two more installments, one Champagne bottle each month (described in detail, in advance, by email), which they can stop by the store to pick up in person or have shipped directly to their home at no additional cost.

Twelve-Month Membership Gift ($589)

A full year’s membership in the Champagne Society includes a pre-packaged, ready-for-wrapping gift box containing The Champagne Society December two bottles Selection, Champagne Laherte Frères, along with a congratulatory certificate informing the recipient that they are now part of the Champagne Society, whose members are eligible for discounted prices on highly allocated Champagne, many bought directly, and many available only through Elie Wine Company. Then, in February and April, June, August and October, they are eligible to receive five more installments, one bottle of Champagne each month (described in detail, in advance, by email), which they can stop by the store to pick up in person or have shipped directly to their home at no additional cost.

Notebook …

Wine Siblings: Sancerre and Chablis

Brothers from another mother or sisters from another mister; either way, the land beneath Sancerre and Chablis springs from the same prehistory. Classified in the middle of the 18th century by French geologist Alcide d’Obigny while he was working near the English town of Kimmeridge, he identified a unique layer of dark marl and called it ‘Kimmeridgian.’

Still, as in siblings, there are distinct differences in the DNA of English Kimmeridgian and French Kimmeridgian. The French layer is a relatively uniform chalky marl with thin limestone containing rich layers of seashells. This is because strata formed from the post Jurassic period continued to be deposited in the shallow sea areas which once covered part of France. The way these layers interact is key to the reason that French Kimmeridgian soils produce some of the world’s most heralded wine. The marly soil provides good structure, ideal water-retention and is easy to cultivate while hard limestone Portlandian contains numerous fossil fragments and, having been repeatedly shattered by frost, offers good aeration and ideal drainage along gentle slopes.

Chablis is a significant part of the Kimmeridgian chain; mid-slope vineyards in Chablis match almost perfectly to the Kimmeridgian outcrop, with the soft, carbonate-rich rock being covered by Portlandian limestone and supported by other limestone deposits. Sancerre, meanwhile, sits on top a fault ridge; the eastern side has a layer of Cretaceous soils while the west side is covered with brush and gravel slopes. Further west the best vineyards sit on the classic Portlandian-Kimmeridgian soil combination, producing a classic example of ‘terroir’.

- - -
Posted on 2024.12.12 in Sancerre, Rosé de Loire, France, Wine-Aid Packages, Loire