The Terroirs of Quincy with Domaines Tatin, 2018
I have come round to the belief over the past year or so that it is much more enjoyable to drink a good wine from Quincy (or indeed any of the other islands of Sauvignon Blanc that orbit Sancerre) than a lesser wine from a more renowned appellation. In truth, it is not that I ever held the opposite belief. It is just that in exploring Quincy in some detail over the last twelve months, penning a number of new profiles including Domaine Lecomte, Domaine Roux, Adèle Rouzé and Jacques Rouzé, I have encountered a number of really quite striking wines, many of which are sold for a song. And when I think back to some of the more ropey examples of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé I have tasted in years gone by, wines which still command a premium price thanks to the famous appellation on the label, it is a no-brainer which wine I would rather drink.
Some of the more convincing wines I have tasted come from Jean Tatin, usually under the name of Domaine du Tremblay, occasionally as Domaines Tatin. Recently, in the 2014 vintage, Jean released a set of four single-vineyard wines in order to demonstrate some of the different styles that the generally sandy and gravelly soils of this appellation engender. Duly tasted, I report on these four wines here, but first a little background information on Quincy and its terroir.
Quincy Terroir
Unlike Sancerre, where any treatise on terroir inevitably settles on the differences between limestone, marl and flint, here on the banks of the Cher the soils are very different. The vineyards are almost exclusively situated on the left bank of this river as it flows through the communes of Quincy and Brinay. There is some limestone, but it has mostly been buried by the Cher which has followed this route since at least the end of the last Ice Age. Over that time it has deposited a deep bed of sediment comprising gravel, clay, silt and quartzite stone, mixed with the rolled river-bed pebbles, much of this material carried from further upstream before settling out here. Beneath this upper layer, which in parts is several metres thick, are the Calcaires Lacustres de Berry, limestones laid down during the Bartonian and Rupelian stages. In some places this seam of limestone is 50 metres thick, and it is only below this layer that we find the Portlandian, Oxfordian and Kimmeridgian limestones that characterise the vineyards of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé.
