Michel Redde, 2023 Update
After a flurry of updates focused on Cabernet Franc, from Philippe Alliet, Domaine de la Butte and Olga Raffault, today I turn my attention upstream, to the wines of Michel Redde.
While there is clearly great history around the Pouilly-Fumé appellation – christened so after the town of Pouilly-sur-Loire, a name which evolved from the Gallo-Roman Pauliacum super fluvium Ligerim – the domaine is a relatively young one. It was founded in 1930 by Michel Redde, who was born in the hamlet of Saint-Andélain, which as any Sauvignon savant knows sits at the centre of some of the appellation’s most prestigious flint-rich soils. As a young man he took the family’s smallholding, at that time a diminutive polycultural affair, and shaped it into a modern viticultural domaine, taking advantage of the increasing renown enjoyed by the newly anointed Pouilly-Fumé appellation.
Michel subsequently passed the domaine to his son Thierry Redde, who was in charge when I first visited the domaine, more than a few years ago. These days, however, it is the third generation, siblings Sébastien and Romain Redde, who generally call the shots.
I decided, possibly influenced by a recent invitation to sit on a panel discussing aged Sauvignon Blanc at next year’s Wine Paris, to pull a few of their bottles from a (very slightly) older vintage. So I picked out a quartet of 2017s (although I expect the wines I am presented with at next year’s panel to be somewhat older!).
