Benoit Chauveau Coteaux du Giennois Silex 2021

Domaine Benoit Chauveau is a long-time First Bottle favorite. They make beautiful expressions of sauvignon blanc from the various terroirs of the Loire Valley, including Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, Pouilly sur Loire, and here on a hilltop in the Coteaux du Giennois. For just $17.95 – this is a fantastic that will put any top-notch Sancerre to the test!

The Chauveau family has been farming the region since the 1800s, yet it was the efforts of the current generation, Benoit Chauveau, that united the scattered parcels and shifted focus solely towards grape growing. He began with the purchase of his parents’ parcel in 1995, adding on his grandparents’ holdings a couple of years later. Today, the domaine stretches across 17 hectares throughout the Loir Valley, including 2 hectares of sauvignon blanc in the Coteaux du Giennois used for this wine.

With the prices of sauvignon blanc from neighboring Pouilly Fume and Sancerre skyrocketing, in many cases doubling in the last decade, it is up-and-coming regions like Coteaux du Giennois that are seeing increased interest from the international wine scene. Only one hilltop in this small appellation has the highly sought-after flinty, "Silex" soils, and that is where Benoit staked his claim. We visited Benoit last Spring and were blown away by the previous vintage of this wine. Honestly, this new release is just a wee bit better (and that’s saying something)!

We love the clean and piercing style of this wine with plenty of ripe Meyer lemon, Ruby grapefruit, and Bosc pear aromas and flavors, but it is the signature wet stone and gunflint that elevate this to the next level. Coteaux du Giennois is a very small appellation with only about 470 acres planted, which surrounds the village of Gien. Benoit makes two different wines from their parcels here, determined by the soils – “Calcaire” and this “Silex.” This wine hails from all shallow, alluvial, limestone, and chipped flint soils, and man, it is SO GOOD! 2021 is a vintage that is exceptionally challenging, as the region was rocked by the worst frost in over two decades. The yields are way, way down, but what berries survived enjoyed a cool, long summer, with a warm and dry few weeks just prior to harvest. As such, the 2021 vintage marks a symbolic return to a more classic style – with brighter, fresher, beautifully aromatic wines that show less unctuous ripeness than the 2020 that many of you bought from us. It’s intensely clean, and incredibly pure...simply classic sauvignon blanc that stuns at this amazing price! Grab a case, you will not regret it!