Domaine Vacheron, 2014 Update
I have recently been working my way through Sancerre, both vicariously and in reality. I spent a couple of days in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé last October, visiting a number of domaines during the harvest, and seeing the picking of the 2013 vintage first-hand. Then when I returned to the Loire in February I made sure I met up with a number of vignerons, some of whom I had met the preceding October, some of whom I hadn’t seen for a year or two (or three). And as a consequence, over the last few months I have been expanding my coverage of this important slice of the Loire Valley, with new profiles for the likes of François Cotat, Vincent Pinard and others, as well as updates of a number of older profiles. One domaine profile I was very glad to be able to update, having spent some time with the family during the 2013 harvest, was for Domaine Vacheron.
It was only a day or two ago, having published the update a few weeks previously, that I uncovered a number of tasting notes from the 2014 Salon des Vins de Loire when I tasted through the 2012 vintage with Jean-Louis Vacheron. This was an enjoyable and significant tasting, first because I don’t recall tasting with Jean-Louis before, as it is usually Denis Vacheron or Jean-Dominique Vacheron (pictured) that I encounter, and secondly because the tasting largely featured the wines of the 2012 vintage, surely the best vintage for Sancerre in recent years. The wines are, quite simply, stunning; at the single-vineyard level they are either excellent, or flirt with excellence, in every single case.
The Wines
There was one wine from the 2013 vintage, a 2013 Sancerre Rosé, but I have already published this note in my Loire 2013 vintage report so I won’t make any further mention of it here. There is also no need to dwell on the 2012 Sancerre Blanc, a very reliable wine which I have tasted and reported on several times before. It has a remarkable level of quality and consistency. The 2012 Sancerre Rouge is a nice wine, but doesn’t provoke the same level of interest for me.
