Gift set: Cépage Sauvignon blanc

Contrary to what one might think today, the Centre-Loire has not always been a sanctuary for Sauvignon Blanc. For centuries, under the influence of the Duchy of Burgundy, the hillsides of Sancerre were planted primarily with Pinot Noir and Gamay. Everything changed at the end of the 19th century with phylloxera: everything had to be replanted, and Sauvignon Blanc, which was easier to graft onto American rootstocks resistant to the aphid, gradually became the dominant variety. A delicious anecdote: it was Quincy, not Sancerre, that hit the jackpot in 1936, becoming the very first AOC in the Loire Valley, just a few months before its famous neighbor.

Quincy, moreover, lays claim to a two-thousand-year-old vineyard and prides itself on being the true cradle of Sauvignon in the region, introduced according to legend by the Cistercian monks of Beauvoir Abbey. On its sandy and gravelly soils, which are very different from the limestone of Sancerre, the grape variety bursts with freshness and fruit—citrus, white fruits, and exotic notes—far from the mineral austerity sometimes too quickly associated with Sauvignon.

Just nearby, Reuilly cultivates an equally singular identity on a mosaic of red sand, gravel, and clay-limestone: its whites, which are more lively and tense, play the card of gooseberry and citrus. Menetou-Salon, recognized in 1959, owes its character to limestone soils riddled with oyster fossils and Kimmeridgian marl, yielding supple and immediately charming wines that emphasize fruit over rock.

But if one terroir had to be crowned, it would inevitably be Sancerre. There, the geological fault that exposed layers of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods creates a mosaic all its own: the limestone "caillottes" produce precise and balanced wines, the Kimmeridgian "terres blanches" offer a refined roundness, and the flint provides that famous smoky note that has made its legend even in export markets. It is perhaps this unique capacity to condense, on a single hillside, all the diversity that its neighbors each display in their own way, that ultimately established Sancerre as the global benchmark for Loire Sauvignon.

From theory to the glass: here are six cuvées chosen directly from the winemakers to taste Sauvignon Blanc in all its nobility: