Claude Riffault Sancerre Les Chailloux 2020 (750ML)

94+ WA / 94 VM

From 41- to 48-year-old vines on silex soils at 250 meters in altitude, Stéphan Riffault's 2020 Sancerre Les Chailloux shows a deep, complex and intensely mineral bouquet with ripe, intense, elegant and rather yellow-fleshed fruit aromas and iodine notes. Aged on the lees for more than a year prior to the bottling at the end 2021, this is a pure, dense and intense Sancerre with texture and generous physalis notes. There is a tropical sensation here, whereas the finish is coolish, flinty and full of tension. Fruits and minerals as well as structure and acidity are perfectly interwoven here. It is still tight and closed (if not austere) but a very promising and full-bodied wine. 14% stated alcohol. Natural cork. Tasted in January 2022.—Stephan Reinhardt, The Wine Advocate

The flint-based 2020 Sancerre Les Chailloux is serious, mineral and focused. Offering concentration, intensity and a lightly chewy, attractive almost toniclike bitterness, creating a dense and linear shape. Forget aromatic Sauvignon Blancs, this is not it, but if you're a fan of structure and a strict, schoolmistresslike wine, this will be your thing.-Rebecca Gibb MW, Vinous Media