Gerard Boulay Sancerre Comtesse AOC Blanc 2016

When he was Inspector General of the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée board, Pierre Bréjoux noted that there are some wines of Sancerre that "...one would like to have a throat as long as a swan's neck so as to taste them better." Boulay's Comtesse, is one such Sancerre, a wine as profound and seductive as this region can gift. This rare bottling comes from just 0.40 hectares of 70 year old vines in the Comtesse lieu-dit (vineyard/place name) at the chalky epicentre of Les Monts-Damnés. For hundreds of years, or more, this vineyard has been widely considered locally to be the finest single terroir of Chavignol. The soil composition is pure Kimmeridgian limestone. The soil here consists of a miserly 30-40cm layer of topsoil over solid limestone bedrock (bringing a lot of minerality and also warmth as the rocky soil absorbs the heat of the sun and irradiates back at night). It's a site that always produces fully ripe fruit - hence the historical fame - as well as intense minerality. Full, almost exotic ripeness plus intense minerality? They have a term for that in the Côte de Beaune... they call it Grand Cru. This is precisely what you get here: Grand Cru quality and Boulay's most powerful and hedonistic wine. And like many a Grand Cru, it can be a wine that requires a certain degree of patience to fully appreciate although I've got to say, the 2016 is wonderful right now (even better in 12 months). No tasting note really necessary; this stone cold stunner is a thrilling white wine with deep citrus oil and rose water aromas and flavours and an intensity that literally etches its signature across your palate. Forget the variety (which I defy anyone to pick blind), this is a wine of terroir - a stunning wine of incredible class from a vintage that has greatness written all over it.