Vincent Gaudry, 2016 Update
Like the wines of Pierre Morin, those of Vincent Gaudry are also a relatively recent discovery. Whereas Pierre’s wines brim with intense minerality though, Vincent’s are perhaps more textural and broad. I might say that they are made in a less ‘classic’ style, although there is a problem a statement such as that. In Bué, there are any number of benchmarks against which Pierre Morin can be compared and contrasted, domaines which determine a Bué ‘style’, but the vineyards Vincent Gaudry tends are secluded in the near-wilderness of Sury-en-Vaux. Who is to say what style of wine we should expect from this distant corner of the Sancerre vineyard?
Vincent Gaudry (pictured) has some rather peripheral beliefs, and I think his wines, to some extent, reflect that. They are nothing like the extreme style we see coming from the chai of Sébastien Riffault, for example, but they are wines that seem to exist on a different plane to many others in the region. The whites can be deeply textured, reminding me somewhat of Menetou-Salon from Philippe Gilbert, and they can at times display distinctive and entrancing nuances of menthol and apple. How much of this character is down to Vincent’s biodynamic methods, or even the standing stones that may channel unseen mystical forces through the cellars, is understandably difficult to ascertain.
The Wines
After a good showing from the 2014 Tournebride (although a bottle I had at home last year was certainly stronger), I quickly moved onto the Mélodie de Vieilles Vignes (from limestone) and Constellation du Scorpion (from flint) cuvées, both presented in the 2014 vintage. Truth be told both samples felt a little tired; they had been open since early morning, and I was tasting them mid-afternoon. Second bottles Vincent opened at my suggestion were, in both cases, better, and it is on these bottles that I have scored the wine. I had a definite preference for the flint cuvée rather than the limestone, not for the first time, and I following up with the 2013 vintage I found the older example of this cuvée just as convincing as it is in 2014.
