1/22/2024 0 Comments Sancerre wine wikiWhen you see water flowing, smoothly, over rocks in a mountain stream it seems to take on a strength. Think of pure, clean mineral water with a backbone. The aromatics are somehow exuberant and discreet at the same time. They have a silky, transparent quality that highlights herbal and mineral notes. When they’re young there’s a lovely citrussy focus - often with notes more of tangerine than of lemon or lime. Whatever it is that makes the magic, Silex wines can be stunning. They’ve never been able to show that minerals in the soil work their way up the vines to the grapes. It feels like flint lends its metallic minerality to the flavor and texture of the juice, yet scientists will mostly tell you that they can’t say why. This alone makes silex a coveted soil type in a cool region like Sancerre.īut fundamentally, there is still a lot of mystery to how soils influence the final wines they make. The stones capture and retain heat, even in cool areas, which it then gifts to the vines. Part of this completeness of flavor may come because of the soil’s ability to promote steady, even ripening. In fact, Pouilly Fumé’s original name was “Blanc Fumé de Pouilly.” Or it may be because Sancerre’s neighbor, Pouilly Fumé, still retains the old moniker. What's in a name? If Blanc Fumé, the old name for Sauvignon Blanc, sounds vaguely familiar, it may be because Robert Mondavi used it as the basis for his Fumé Blanc labels, when he started promoting California Sauvignon Blanc decades ago. Wine geeks also often say that Sauvignon Blanc grown in flint has a special kind of precision: fruit and mineral flavors may not be as intense as when Sauvignon Blanc is grown in limestone, but they are beautifully drawn with distinct layers of flavor - even when those flavors are intimately related. Silex has a reputation in some corners for giving a “flinty” character to the wine - a smokey note that the French call “pierre à fusil” - literally, “gunflint.” One old French name for Sauvignon Blanc, “Blanc Fumé,” is said to have come from this characteristic, Fumé being French for smoked or smokey. At their best, the flint-based wines of Sancerre are the most elegant and finely-etched expressions of Sauvignon Blanc anywhere, with distinctive citrus, herbal, mineral and even smokey notes. What does Sancerre from Silex soils taste like?įlint can do a lot for a wine. While the most famous - and longest lived - Sancerre are those grown in kimmeridgian limestone soils, Silex makes for utterly delicious and distinctive wines that are highly prized by many wine lovers.Īnd that’s why you so often see Sancerre bottlings with names like “Cuvee Silex’ or variations on the theme! This means that in many “silex” vineyards you will also find some limestone and other rocks in the mix.įlint doesn’t just give the vineyards a different look, of course it gives the local wines a special character. Sancerre’s silex soils were created by millenia of erosion of limestone that left much of the harder flint stones behind. But flint is generally a harder stone and can have an almost metallic look. Silex is closely associated with limestone soils - they can exist in close proximity.
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