Having started this blog in Sancerre with the Dr No of Chavignol (Sean Connery having just passed on, and Cotat's door supposedly always being closed) I thought we'd better drink one...
As I said, vintage does matter here, and though global warming in the Loire may have helped the wines (especially the reds?) and this end of the Kimmeridgian chalk belt does not suffer from frost whereas in Chablis every spring there are hay bales burning, candles lit, windmills whirring, water pipes dripping (to coat the precious new buds in protective ice) and even helicopters aloft, well, you can wish for too much of a good thing...
Some 2009s (like those of Gerard Boulay) showed deep yellow colours and a thick richness, almost sweetness, that is not my idea of Sancerre. They weighed in at 14% and where just too heavy for me. On the other hand the 2005 and 2008 of F. Cotat were linear, citrus and lovely, full of chewy extract and ageless.
But this 2010 is an oddly deep yellow and very ripe, again almost to a level where you wonder if there's any residual sugar hanging around. I certainly wouldn't want to be served it blind. It's nice enough, but again, just not what I expect and, frankly, want from these super vineyards in the hands of the master of Sancerre. It's a question of personal preference, but for me the 2005 and 2008 were quintessential.
And now we have three sunny, precocious vintages in a row, 18.19,20...