Cotat Sancerre les Monts Damnes 2010

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...

Postscript - ‘The Wine in My Glass’

After some encouragement and a fair few blog posts, I have published (Sept 2025) a book about my travels in the wine world, people, places and, of course, wines.  I am not a professional, so everything I say is objective and unbiased (so I can criticise when other journalists do not dare to do so for instance) and any profits will go to the Vendanges Solidaires association which was set up in 2016 to help winemakers who are in trouble after suffering the extreme weather conditions (frost, hail, fire, flood etc) which sadly are becoming ever more frequent: www.vendangessolidaires.com.

The book ranges from California to Sicily, via Salta, Jujuy and Patagonia in Argentina, Valtellina, Piemonte and Tuscany in Italy, Madeira and of course all over France (Burgundy, Chablis, Sancerre, Beaujolais, Bordeaux, the Rhone).

If you have found any pleasure and/or interest in this blog, I think you might enjoy it, especially as it has been brilliantly illustrated by Arabella Langlands-Perry who managed to juggle bringing up two young kids, helping run Maceo/Willi’s Wine Bar in Paris and producing artwork with an abundance of both talent and wit. Brava.

‘The Wine in My Glass – Tales of Wines, Winemakers and Places’

Published by The Medlar Press Limited, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, autumn 2025. www.medlarpress.com       

https://medlarpress.com/bookstore/?store-page=The-Wine-in-My-Glass-p768838784

Available from Medlar in UK, and/or from me in France.

Price UK Pounds 26 or 30 Euros. All profits to charity.