Sancerre is a French white wine that practically sells itself. For decades, Americans have been so enamored with these Loire Valley Sauvignon Blancs that it’s often a challenge to find a by-the-glass list or retail shelf without them. This popularity, combined with a string of challenging vintages that caused supply shortages, means that Sancerre prices have increased in recent years. And a number of mediocre bottlings proliferate, making a search for quality wines more difficult.
As our latest Tasting Highlights shows below, trading up a bit in price can get you a lot more complexity and depth. Like many leading domaines in Sancerre, the family-led Henri Bourgeois is dialing into vineyard-specific winemaking to showcase the region’s impressive diversity of soils. Its single-site ES-56 bottling comes from a vineyard with flinty soils, and the wine offers a ton of richness alongside the refreshing minerality and salty notes one expects from Sancerre.
This lineup also includes Hubert Brochard's Sancerre Château de Fontaine-Audon Terres de Silex 2023, one of the top scorers, a mineral-driven white wine with lime and nectarine notes. Read on to get our score and full tasting note for this fantastic Sancerre and eight others.
Tasting Highlights' wine reviews are fresh out of the tasting room, offering a sneak peek of our editors' most recent ratings—including scores and full tasting notes—to WineSpectator.com members.
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