2017 Domaine Delaporte, Chavignol, Sancerre, Loire

The Wine: Grape variety: Sauvignon Blanc 100 %. Pale gold with green hints. Very expressive, intense and complex nose with boxwood, rhubarb, blackcurrant, kiwi fragrances and a light vegetal touch (marigold).The entry is soft and round. Bright freshness on the palate, delicate and lively purity.
Well balanced and harmonious, it ends with a clean lingering finish.

The vines have a southeasterly exposure and are planted on slopes that get a great deal of sunshine. Thanks to a diversity of soils types, principally flint (50%) and limestone (50%) and a strict blending of wines from 28 plots, we have brought finesse, aromatic complexity and minerality to this wine. This wine is composed of vines with an average age of 35 years. The consistent high quality of our Sancerre is remarkable and unique in its style.

Winemaking: . Pneumatic pressing. Fermentation in stainless-steel thermo-regulated vats at 18° in October and November. Pumping over and aging on lees for three months in December, January and February. In March, racking, fining and light filtering before bottling. 50% of our wines are bottled in April, May and June. Bottled in the spring, they willkeep all their primary aromas for 3 years and more.

Pairing: As a young wine, it is a superb aperitif served at 10°C and a marvelous companion for shellfish.After a few month of maturation, it becomes excellent with oriental dishes, fish dishes, sushi, grilled or fish with a sauce. Also very good with roasted white meats and poultry. This wine should be served between 10 and 13°C.

The Winery:  Located in the heart of the Sancerre region, the Delaporte Domaine is a family business that has been been handed from father to son since the 17th century

The domain can be found in the pretty village of Chavignol whose reputation for its famous goat’s cheese, “Crottin de Chavignol” is wide spread.

Since 2010 Vincent Delaporte’s grandson, Matthieu Delaporte has been fully focused on further improving the domaine’s wines. A more organic approach has been adopted in the vineyards with herbicides no longer being used. Yields have been lowered and oak is being judiciously introduced to the vinification.

Our Sancerre wines have a deal of finesse and subtlety and whilst the lessons of the past have not been forgotten we know that improvements can always be made. Since 2015, the harvest is done entirely by hand. This allowed for more selective picking which undoubtedly impacted the quality of the resulting wines.

Our wines are all made from grapes grown in our own vineyards which today extend to 33 hectares, three quarters of which are planted with a very fine clone of Sauvignon Blanc, while the rest is the most elegant and delicate of red varieties, Pinot Noir. We aim to give the upmost respect to the terroir and land in which we work and which gives us our living and to care for it for the generations to come.

Read more at: http://www.domaine-delaporte.com/en/

2017 Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand

The Winery: (From Wine -Searcher) Cloudy Bay Vineyards is the most famous producer in New Zealand’s Marlborough region, and its Sauvignon Blanc is one of the country’s most sought-after wines.

The winery has four estate vineyards in the Wairau Valley subregion of Marlborough, and buys fruit from nine other Wairau vineyards. The Wairau Valley itself was the product of several glacial periods ending 14,000 years ago, and the resultant soils vary from washed stone to gravel, alluvial silt and clay. Marlborough has a maritime climate and has some of the longest sunshine hours of anywhere in New Zealand.

The pre-eminent wine of Cloudy Bay is Sauvignon Blanc, but it also produces Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, as well as Gewürztraminer, Riesling, Pinot Gris, a late-harvest wine and a sparkling wine, Pelorus. Cloudy Bay was one of the first wineries in Marlborough, and is recognized as one of the producers that spawned the international success of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. The flagship offering is more fruit-forward than its French counterparts, with a little less acidity and a region-specific herbaceousness. However, Cloudy Bay also produces an alternative style, Te Koko, which is fermented in oak using wild yeast, producing a more savory, complex wine.

The estate was started in 1985 by David Hohnen, the founder of Cape Mentelle Vineyards in Western Australia’s Margaret River region. Hohnen sold Cloudy Bay to Veuve Clicquot in 1990, but stayed on in charge of its operations. He finally left in 2003, after Veuve Clicquot was bought by the multinational luxury group, LVMH. The result was significantly increased production and an expanded international market, with 100,000 cases of Sauvignon Blanc produced in 2009 alone.

Read more at: https://us.cloudybay.co.nz/

2015 Chateau Latour-Martillac, Pessac-Leognan, France

The Wine: This is a blend of 60% Sauvignon Blanc and 40% Sémillon.

Parker: “The 2015 La Tour Martillac has a gorgeous, complex nose, subtle pear and green apple scents, a whiff of the old sea spray coming in from the Atlantic. The palate is very well balanced with crisp acidity, very complex in the mouth with lip-smacking salinity towards the finish. What a fabulous white Bordeaux from the estate, certainly one of the best that I have ever J encountered. Drink 2020 – 2045.”

J. Suckling: “A brilliant and intense white with oyster shell, lemon, pear and sea salt character. Full body, flavorful finish.”

The Winery: The estate takes its name from the tower which stands in the main courtyard of the château; it is the remnant of a fort built in the 12th century by the ancestors of Montesquieu. The structure occupied a strategic position and controlled the route between Bordeaux and Toulouse. The stones of the fort were used to build the existing château at the endof the 18th century.

The vineyard is divided into two uniform subsectors. On the Martillac plateau, the hill dominates the property and is made up of a patchwork of gravel. These little pebbles deposited there by the river Garonne in the Quaternary period form a finely tuned mix of Quartz, Lydian, Jasper and Flint. These poor soils and drainage constitute an ideal terrain for the vine and in particular for the red grape varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot. Moving closer to the Garonne, the soils take on a different profile of clay and limestone, still with a gravel surface. It is here that the Merlot variety grows best and also our white grape varieties of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon.

Read more at: http://www.latourmartillac.com/en/

4.  CV Members Rating

View full evaluation here: 200 Summary of Scores

Best Rated Wine: 2017 Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand

Best Buy: 2017 Cloudy Bay, Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand

5. Technical Notes 

From Wkipedia:

Sauvignon blanc is a green-skinned grape variety that originates from the Bordeaux region of France. The grape most likely gets its name from the French words sauvage (“wild”) and blanc (“white”) due to its early origins as an indigenous grape in South West France.^[1] It is possibly a descendant of Savagnin. Sauvignon blanc is planted in many of the world’s wine regions, producing a crisp, dry, and refreshing white varietal wine. The grape is also a component of the famous dessert wines from Sauternes and Barsac. Sauvignon blanc is widely cultivated in France, Chile, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the states of Washington and California in the US. Some New World Sauvignon blancs, particularly from California, may also be called “Fumé Blanc”, a marketing term coined by Robert Mondavi in reference to Pouilly-Fumé.

Depending on the climate, the flavor can range from aggressively grassy to sweetly tropical. In cooler climates, the grape has a tendency to produce wines with noticeable acidity and “green flavors” of grass, green bell peppers and nettles with some tropical fruit (such as passion fruit) and floral (such as elderflower) notes. In warmer climates, it can develop more tropical fruit notes but risk losing a lot of aromatics from over-ripeness, leaving only slight grapefruit and tree fruit (such as peach) notes.Wine experts have used the phrase “crisp, elegant, and fresh” as a favorable description of Sauvignon blanc from the Loire Valley and New Zealand.

Sauvignon blanc, when slightly chilled, pairs well with fish or cheese, particularly chèvre. It is also known as one of the few wines that can pair well with sushi. Along with Riesling, Sauvignon blanc was one of the first fine wines to be bottled with a screwcap in commercial quantities, especially by New Zealand producers. The wine is usually consumed young, as it does not particularly benefit from aging, as varietal Sauvignon blancs tend to develop vegetal aromas reminiscent of peas and asparagus with extended aging. Dry and sweet white Bordeaux, including oak-aged examples from Pessac-Léognan and Graves, as well as some Loire wines from Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre are some of the few examples of Sauvignon blancs with aging potential.

From Wine Searcher: 

Sauvignon Blanc is a white-wine grape from western France, now successfully grown in emerging and established wine regions all over the world. While the grape may be more readily associated with the Loire Valley (for its pivotal role in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé), it is more likely to have originated from Bordeaux, where it is typically blended with Semillon.

In the late 20th Century, a new region began to gain a reputation as one of the great Sauvignon Blanc regions of the world: Marlborough, at the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island. The rapid development of the Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is one of the most dramatic events in the world of wine. The intense and readily accessible flavor of a classic Marlborough “Savvy” (as it is colloquially known in that part of the world) has captured a vast market around the globe, from the United States and Canada to the UK and northern Europe, Australia and Japan. In 2015, Sauvignon Blanc accounted for around 85% of New Zealand’s wine exports.

France and New Zealand, the variety has been relatively successful in New World regions such as California, Chile (particularly the Casablanca and San Antonio valleys) and South Africa. Even in Australia the variety can thrive in the cooler coastal areas of the south. In Europe, the cool, sunny sub-alpine slopes of Alto Adige and Friuli in northern Italy produce high quality Sauvignon Blanc, which is used in blends with native varieties like Friulano or on its own.

Read more here: https://www.wine-searcher.com/grape-435-sauvignon-blanc