Claude Riffault Sancerre Les Chasseignes 2022

We wanted to meet Stéphane Riffault so much that we made an entire trip to taste his electrifying wines with him at a Biodyvin fair in Paris. The reason is simple: Stéphane is now one of the best winemakers in Sancerre and the Loire, a biodynamic expert who takes risks in the cellar to enhance the different exposures and plots of Kimmeridgian marl (Boucauds), limestone (Chasseignes) and flint (Chailloux), whether in concrete or in truncated-conical wooden barrels, with the same drama and precision.

Special Note: Vinous 91-93

BiodyVin certified biodynamic

*Soils known as “caillottes”, formed by limestone boulders of the Oxfordian age of the Upper Jurassic period, 165 million years old, generally at the base of hills whose highest part is of the most recent Kimmeridgian age, 155 million years old. Wines from “caillottes” present a fruitiness and a broader, more intense and precise texture in the olfactory descriptors of citrus, flowers and white-fleshed orchard fruits, elegance with generosity, so to speak.