2019 Les Champs Libres

The Les Champs Libres 2019 Blanc wafts from the glass with notes of lime blossom, citrus zest, wet stones and pastry cream. Medium to full-bodied, taut and incisive, it's chalky and concentrated, with racy acids, lovely structuring dry extract and a long, mineral finish. It's produced from Sancerrois massal selections of Sauvignon Blanc (and now a tiny percentage of Sémillon, too) planted on deep clay soils on the slopes at Grand Village, the Guinaudeau family having sagely concluded that clay is as essential to a great white wine as limestone. Like many of this family's wines, it makes a mockery of Bordeaux's traditional hierarchy.

Honeysuckle, pink grapefruit, guava, lemon meringue, and flowers create the complex nose. With crisp, bright, fresh, juicy, yellow citrus, the wine slaps your palate with fruit and keeps on going all the way through to the creamy finish. If you are a fan of white Bordeaux, this hits all the right buttons and is well-worth seeking out. The wine is produced from 100% Sauvignon Blanc.

Peach, nectarine, citrus, slate and oyster shell aromatics make you salivate even before you taste the wine. This is followed by grip and poise on the palate, with pummice stone scraping from the first moment, with a curl of gunsmoke reduction. It evolves in the glass, showing tension and balance, along with creamy citrus fruits. Just love this wine, increasingly setting the pace for white Bordeaux and truly worth seeking out. 100% Sancerre genetics for the Sauvignon Blanc, vinified entirely in new oak, in a mix of Burgundy barrels and larger-sized oak casks. Harvest September 6 to 9. From the same family as Château Lafleur in Pomerol.