2023 Domaine François Crochet Sancerre "Exils", Loire Valley, France

ABOUT THIS WINE

“Les Exils” (an anagram for Silex) comes from a parcel in Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre on a steep slope facing east between 230-260 meters on silex (chert) bedrock and extremely rocky topsoil with little clay and organic material. Grapes are whole-cluster pressed, then cold settled overnight. This is followed by a natural fermentation in steel with aging up to 18 months (though usually less with Les Exils) in various containers (depending on the year and taste of the grapes) between steel, old oak tronconic (vertical) oak, concrete vats and egg-shaped vessels.

ABOUT THIS PRODUCER

In Sancerre, three villages have come to be associated with wines of distinction: Chavignol, Ménétréol-sous-Sancerre, and Bué. François Crochet lives in Bué and farms around eleven hectares, with vines predominantly around this home village (including around 3.5ha of Pinot Noir!). Some of these 30 parcels Crochet works are in several renowned single-vineyards in Bué, including lieux-dits Petit Chemarin, Grand Chemarin and Le Chêne Marchand. These vineyards are limestone-based, rendering a distinctive mineral quality to Crochet’s wines that isn’t always found in the more industrially-produced wines of the region. Of course, each parcellaire wine has its own personality, but the single-vineyard wines are aged on fine lees in large foudre for 18 months, adding openness and elegance—a style long abandoned by most producers in the appellation. Crochet’s methods are gentle: fruit is hand-harvested and whole-cluster pressed, making for pure, delicate expression—less ripeness and dullness, less of that “Sancerre-y” character of which one might complain, which has its origin in rough handling of fruit, poor farming, and over-cropped yields. Since 2019, only wild yeasts have been used in the winery, deepening the wines’ profiles; since 2017, the vineyards are worked both organically (certified) and biodynamically (practicing since 2018 and conversion completed in 2020).