A Visit to Henri Bourgeois, 2016
One of the most enjoyable tasks I took on during 2015 was organising a tasting of Oaked Sauvignon Blanc. I was asked to help out by Richard Bampfield MW and Jean-Christophe Mau, of Château Brown. The idea was to pit the increasingly popular white wine of Château Brown against a range of other white wines from Bordeaux as well as, crucially, similar styles from the Loire Valley. Obviously, the wines of Sancerre, Pouilly-Fumé and the like feature pure Sauvignon Blanc rather than the Sauvignon-Semillon blend that is the norm in Bordeaux, but on every other level the wines were the same. Crucially, they were all vinified entirely – both fermentation and élevage – in oak.
After drawing up a shortlist of eight domaines, including Alphonse Mellot, Didier Dagueneau, La Tour Saint Martin and others, I set about procuring the wines – one recent vintage, typically 2012, and one older vintage – that I needed. This basically involved begging for bottles, which generally produced a positive response.
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