Domaine Jean-Michel Sorbe

It’s the ultimate winegrower’s vintage. The 2008 growing season in the Loire began uneventfully, at least until the midsummer hail storm ripped through the valley, leaving shattered clusters in its wake. For many producers, like Jean-Michel and Guillaume Sorbe, production would be cut by 40%. If that wasn’t enough, the rain came in August, pounding the region, making producers wonder if they would actually have a harvest. Those who weren’t superbly attentive suffered. The best producers of Sancerre and a few superb young growers in the satellite appellations kept things in check. And they waited.

The rigor and the waiting paid tremendous dividends when the skies turned blue, the days warm and the nights cool — stretching out the harvest until the few grapes that remained reached fantastic physiological maturity. Vincent Ricard called it “the best vintage in a decade.” Dominique Roger said “it was the most amazing vintage of his 25 year career.” Jean-Michel Sorbe, who fashioned this superb tiny-production Sauvignon Blanc from the sand and gravel soils of Quincy, just called it “etonnant.” (”amazing”).

With the escalation in the price of Sancerre and the continued weakening of the dollar, we’re constantly on the lookout for truly inspired producers making wine just off the beaten path. As was the case with Vincent Ricard’s ’08s, Jean-Michel Sorbe’s 2008 Quincy not only outclasses most of the Sancerres from 2008 — it sets a new bar for Quincy, combining sinew, richness and wet stone minerality.

If that’s so, why haven’t you heard of Quincy? Because most of the wines just aren’t up to snuff. As Quincy doesn’t carry the commercial calling card of Sancerre, the wines sell for less. With wines selling for less, producers are less inclined to spend more time in the vines — the kiss of death in a vintage like 2008. But when the soil is sandy as it is chez Sorbe, the fruit from rigorously farmed vines is rich and pure. Add in the tight bunches, fine acidity and pathologically low yields of the vintage of the decade — and you have a recipe for one of the best Sauvignon Blanc values we’ve tasted in some time.

Tasting Notes from the WineAccess Travel Log

“Pale green/gold color. Zesty aromas of grapefruit and citrus, fine and pure. Excellent attack with unusually rich green-apple flavors, that benchmark Sancerre-like wet stone minerality. Fine and long in the finish. This will surprise you if you lay it down. Two days later, the Sorbe’s 2008 Quincy was solid as a rock, beginning to show that honeyed kernel of fruit that we always look for in the top wines of the region. Drink now-2015.”