Domaine Gérard Boulay Sancerre Comtesse 2022

This rare bottling comes from just 0.40 hectares of 70-year-old vines in the Comtesse lieu-dit at the chalky epicentre of Les Monts-Damnés. For hundreds of years or more, this vineyard has been considered by locals to be the finest single terroir of Chavignol. In his Le Vignoble de Chavignol, Thibaut Boulay reminds us that at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878, Comtesse was already considered a true star of the Sancerrois, its wines being served on the most renowned tables of northern France.

The soil composition is pure Kimmeridgian limestone and consists of a miserly 30 to 40-cm layer of topsoil over solid limestone bedrock. This brings intense minerality and warmth as the rocky soil absorbs the sun’s heat and irradiates it at night. Therefore, it’s a site that always produces fully ripe fruit and intense freshness—hence the historical fame.

This has that diamond-cut clarity aligned with the intensity of perfectly ripened fruit that is a hallmark of this release, but here there’s also something more elemental. As we have seen, 2020 is Boulay on a heroic scale. The warmer season has done little to blunt the razor-edge precision of this grower’s Sancerre. Marked by the soil rather than the sun, this wine often incorporates the best elements of all the vineyards above. It has seductive texture and hedonistic fruit, yet also great line, mineral clarity, purity and general precision. It’s an achingly delicious, highborn Sancerre.