Domaine Laporte
I have been tasting and drinking the wines of Henri Bourgeois for many years now. If this opening sentence leaves you confused, or has perhaps caused you to wonder whether it is me who is confused, as this is not a profile of Henri Bourgeois, please bear with me. All, I promise, will become clear.
As I was saying, I have been tasting and drinking the wines of Henri Bourgeois for many years now. And so I am familiar with the domaine’s location, in Chavignol, and the fact that the focus of the domaine is fruit from vines in this village, most notably a very significant holding in the famed Les Monts Damnés. But Henri Bourgeois is a huge business of course, and Jean-Marie Bourgeois and his sons and nephews hold sway over a huge expanse of vines, dotted across all Sancerre, and even further afield. And so, finding myself in the passenger seat of Jean-Marie’s car one day, I wasn’t surprised when we sped out of Chavignol, and headed towards Sancerre itself. I was a little more surprised, however, when we bypassed that town, arriving a few minutes later in Saint-Satur, which lies just to the north-east of Sancerre, right on the banks of the Loire. And then we just kept going, down the D955 which tracks the river; keep going in this direction, I thought, and we will soon end up in Gien. The wines of the Coteaux du Giennois have a place in the Bourgeois portfolio, of course, but I doubt anyone would consider it a jewel in the crown.
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