Didier Dagueneau: Pouilly-Fumé and Beyond
Back in Pouilly-Fumé, however, Dagueneau was now enjoying great success. During the 1990s his idiosyncratic character and his evocatively styled wines – one cuvée full of texture and fruit, the next tense, abrupt and minerally – won him plaudits from the world over, as Dagueneau became one of the very few Loire Valley vignerons to become mainstream, feted by popular wine publications in a manner usually reserved for high-flying Burgundy vignerons or top-class Californian estates. Praise also came from within the world of wine, Denis Dubourdieu once describing him as “one of the great winemakers of our generation“. His wines climbed in price, and success was assured.
But Dagueneau did not rest easy on his laurels, as he continued his experiments, caring not one jot for how his peers and wine hacks reacted; Dagueneau was not one to be sidetracked by flattery, or the muttered complaints of officious neighbours. Indeed, with the wood-carving placed above the door to his chai (pictured below – although there is a closer image on the next page) he seemed to be sending his detractors a very clear message. His experiments were wide-ranging, including planting franc de pied (ungrafted vines) in a plot named La Folie, trialling biodynamics, reducing his use of sulphur dioxide and trying wood – in barrels of various shapes and sizes, some made especially for his domaine – for both fermentation and élevage.
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