Sancerre to drink in 2020

Alphonse Mellot rubs his eyes with weariness. It is the day after his 50th birthday. On his stainless-steel bench there’s a line of empty bottles from the who’s who of fine French wine, attesting to the hedonistic celebrations the previous evening.

The Mellot family has been making wine here since at least 1513 and the 19th generation is enjoying the fruits of hundreds of years of toil in the fields that cascade down from the hilltop village of Sancerre.

Scroll down to see great Sancerre wines to drink in 2020

The impressive Mellot cellar, nestled in the heart of the village, is awash with ‘boys’ toys’, including a Mercedes SUV which is almost as shiny as the tanks that it’s parked between. There’s also Seguin Moreau’s new spherical, rotating oak barrel, GalileOak, which cost a cool €50,000 when it was launched in 2018, and which Mellot is using not for a top red cuvée but a lees-aged rosé.

One of Alphonse’s party guests was Jean-Laurent Vacheron of Domaine Vacheron, situated a few narrow streets and several sharp turns away. In another sign of the good times in Sancerre, there are major renovation works taking place here, overhauling the winery and visitor facility, which is currently a shell exposed to the sharp winter cold of continental France.

Times haven’t always been so good for Sancerre. Jean-Marie Bourgeois of Chavignol-based Henri Bourgeois, now 77, would drive to Paris up to four times a week at the busiest times of year to deliver wine to restaurants along with a gift of crottin de Chavignol (the local goat’s cheese). He is concerned its success could be its undoing: ‘I’m afraid that Sancerre will go downhill because the prices are getting too high. Young people think that if they make good wine people will come. It takes more than that.’

It’s true that Sancerre prices have been rising unceasingly. Chris Hardy of wine broker Charles Sydney, explains: ‘Ten years ago you could pick up Sancerre in the UK at £7.99 or £8.99 (approximately $11-12) on promotion. Today it is £15.99 or £16.99 (approximately $21-22) for a generic Sancerre in a supermarket.’

This is largely the result of increasing global demand, plus frost-affected harvests in 2016 and 2017, which have reduced supply and driven up prices.

The general standard of Sancerre is high, with exceptional produers like Mellot and Vacheron, Cotat and Pinard showing just how good it can get.

Great Sancerre transcends its grape variety. Instead of the flamboyant aromatics you’d find in a stereotypical Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand, for example, white Sancerre focuses on structure and texture derived from its origins – whether that’s the clay/limestone soils known as Kimmeridgian marl, the seashell-embedded limestones called caillottes, or flint known as silex.

Purity and transparency are hallmarks of fine Sancerre. Skin contact, lees-derived flavours and new oak are often viewed as detracting from those pristine qualities. Nevertheless, Sancerre’s fruit is open to stylistic interpretation. What’s more, the latest wines on shelf from the warm 2018 vintage also speak of the growing season: rich with ripe fruit and extra flesh due in part to higher alcohol levels. They may not be as long-lived as the more classic 2017s but they have their arms open wide, embracing you in their puppy fat.

Rebecca’s pick of Sancerre wines to drink in 2020:

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