94+ Lemon-colored, the 2012 Sancerre Guigne-Chèvres offers a deep and complex yet bright and clear bouquet of summer flowers and lemons backed up by ripe white and yellow-fleshed fruit aromas which are pointed with spicy...
94+ Lemon-colored, the 2012 Sancerre Guigne-Chèvres offers a deep and complex yet bright and clear bouquet of summer flowers and lemons backed up by ripe white and yellow-fleshed fruit aromas which are pointed with spicy mineral or earthy flavors. The aromas intensify the more air they get and the mineral character of this Sancerre shines through. (To be honest, coming back to this wine after some Anjou Chenin blancs I found this Sancerre aromas quite similar delicate and piquant to some of the finest Nahe or Westhofen Rieslings.) Cultivated in a north-facing vineyard with silex on top of limestone and clay this full-bodied, well structured and purely mineral cru yields only approximately 20 hl/ha. Fermented in upright Stockinger barrels made from Austrian oak trees it develops an enormous tension and length on the palate but is still a very elegant, vivid and subtle Sancerre cru of the highest natural quality. - Stephan Reinhardt