Sancerre?

One night, while Uzzi and I were doing our pop-up at Bar Marilou and waiting patiently (that's a lie we were freaking out) for the bar to be built, a woman asked me for a glass of sancerre. Knowing we didn't have one I suggested the closest equivalent, a Quincy. I told her it was also a sauvignon blanc from the Loire, near Sancerre. Her face scrunched up and she told me, in no uncertain terms, that she "hated" sauvignon blanc. In the interest of maintaining peace I recommended something from the Savoie. I'm still not sure what she thought Sancerre was made from, maybe thought Sancerre was a grape. I was thinking of this last night while we were pouring the Sancerre Rouge from Alain Girard and someone asked that they thought Sancerre was just a white wine. I explained this time that they make pinot in Sancerre as well!

At some point in the past 15 years or so Sancerre was transformed from one of France's many wine appellations into a brand. It transcended in the public's mind the grape it's made out of, the terroir it comes from. It is, for many, merely 'sancerre'. The reasons for this are a few. First, it's arguably the world's best terroir for the sauvignon blanc. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, when winemakers from New Zealand, America, and other hotter weather climates starting producing the grape in quantity a lot of people found that the wines being produced exaggerated a lot of the characteristics of the grape that are more restrained in cooler climes. The grassy, green bell-peppery flavors were blown out, and in many cases so much so the wines started to smell like cat pee. So many wine buyers latched onto Sancerre (and to a lesser extent neighboring Pouilly-Fume) as real sauvignon blanc. Thirdly, and this is the mysterious part, Sancerre just became a 'thing'. Over the course of years it just became a byword for a wine that people order. In France they responded to this sudden interest by doing two things, they started overcropping the wines to produce more and quality suffered, and prices started to creep up, almost to the point where a glassable Sancerre is almost out of reach.

So back to Alain Girard. In the midst of all this change in Sancerre (and the wine world in general) there have always been producers who have quietly kept the traditions of their particular place alive. We often talk of natural wine in terms of disruption, of inventive young winemakers fighting the ever encroaching globalisation, commodification and commercialization of something that is so tied to place and culture. But is also important to remember people like Alain, whose family has been operating since at least 1895, who didn't follow the whims of trends and commerce, who believed greatly in what they were making. Remember is was Josko Gravner who is famous for beginning the explosion of 'orange wines', but it was only him traveling to Georgia and tasting the amphorae aged wines there, where they were made in much the same way as they were 5000 years ago. The wines were only radical out of context, and the moment only happened because of a mix of curiosity and tradition. It's the same way that our current understanding of organic farming was built on a foundation of traditional farming and scientific study.

So when someone asks for a Sancerre are they asking a for a word that is trendy? Or are they asking for nearly 2000 years of winemaking tradition since the roman empire? It's perhaps a moot point, but we love carrying wines that have the weight of the latter behind them.

This week we have a few new rare new wines from Jean-Francois Ganevat in the Jura (a rare Jurassic gamay!), Marie Thibault's old vine gamay, Frantz Saumon one of the greatest young chenin producers (maybe not so young, I first met him 16 years ago..), The tiny Jura estate Domaine Octavin and Chateau Rayas, the greatest grenache producer in the world. I'll get to them next week but be assured they're all very good