It started early on a Saturday in June. I’m minded to say that it disturbed my lie-in but it was way earlier than that that my phone first pinged to announce the arrival of a new website order. (I wonder if Jeff Bezos has the same app on his phone?). Ignored it, rolled over and 5 minutes later it went again. And again. And etc, etc. Finally, before switching the thing off, curiosity got the better of me and I opened up the online shop to find a stream of orders for a wine that I fell in love with 2 years ago but that we had failed to make much headway with – Coteaux du Giennois, Terre de Silex from Clement & Florian Berthier, an outstanding Sauvignon Blanc that just oozes class with a discreet richness and weight and a magical minerality on the finish.
Eventually we traced the culprit to be a Financial Times (viewable for free here) column from Jancis Robinson MW in which she writes:
“The warming climate is changing which places are able to make seriously fine wine. I was sent the current releases from Clément et Florian Berthier in the Upper Loire recently. They included a range of wines from the famous appellation Sancerre, as well as other terroir-specific bottlings from the much less famous Coteaux du Giennois to the north of Sancerre.
For many years, the grapes in the Coteaux du Giennois struggled to ripen and the wines have had appellation contrôlée status only since 1998, but if these Berthier wines are anything to go by, in a warming climate, the humble Coteaux du Giennois is better placed to produce well-balanced, refreshing wines than famous Sancerre, whose Sauvignon Blancs may be in danger of being a bit too ripe to refresh.”
Given that this is the conclusion to a piece charting the rise of wines such as Le Pin and Sassicaia, it is no surprise that our modest stock levels disappeared in a matter of a couple of hours.
More has now arrived and priced as follows:
Single bottle £20.49
6 bottles £19.45 per bottle
12 bottles £18.45 per bottle
You really should have been there………………
There are tastings and then there are tastings and last month we served up the most phenomenal Italian Masterclass in the company of Michael Palij, Master of Wine, who steered us through some of his most recent discoveries (notably a Sardinian quartet which provided all the evidence you need of the revolution taking place in the island’s vineyards and cellars).
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