Jean-Philippe Agisson
It was a dark and drizzly morning as I nudged the car forward. Beyond the windscreen, everything seemed grey; grey clouds slid ominously across a dreary grey sky, all of which melted into one great amorphous blanket of grey, lurking behind an omnipotent fine grey drizzle which swirled and eddied in the air. It seemed to me that it was having difficulty deciding whether it was mist, or rain.
I was on unfamiliar territory. I do not visit the vineyards of Sancerre as often as I do Vouvray, Chinon, Saumur or Savennières, but I have been here more than a few times. But I would often visit domaines in Chavignol (well, who wouldn’t?) such as Gérard Boulay or even Henri Bourgeois, or in Bué, where we find François Crochet and Vincent Pinard. And of course I might head for the hilltop town of Sancerre itself, where the likes of the Vacheron family and Alphonse Mellot are located. And yet here I was, inching along a dead-end, single-track tarmac road nestled in the foot of a narrow valley, surrounded by a jumble of houses which loomed out of the grey mist at seemingly random moments.
Welcome to Sury-en-Vaux, one of the Sancerre appellation’s less exalted communes. Situated to the north (and west a little) of the town of Sancerre I had arrived in the unimaginatively named hamlet of La Vallée, which is – of course – situated in a small valley.
Suddenly, appearing like a mirage from the finest and densest mist known to man, I espied the house I had been looking for. I pulled up and slipped from the car and after finding Stéphanie Agisson readying her children for school – well, it was 7:50 am (the reason for which will soon become clear) – I eventually located my quarry. A winemaker who seems, at first glance, to be relatively new on the scene in Sancerre (more on that in a moment too), Jean-Philippe Agisson.
Please log in to continue reading: