90pts Vinous

The 2023 Le Paradis is pure, round and finely textured, making it easy to like and appreciate. This is a step above your average Sancerre. Despite is light body, the 2023 has plenty of density with delicate flavors of ripe lemon and elderflower. This is precise and focused yet gentle.

Tasting Notes

Aromas of orange and lemon zest, wildflowers. Vibrant and precise, with a nervous tension throughout. Stone fruit, sea-salt, more citrus.

About the Wine

The Vacheron cousins own 1 hectare of vines in the lieu-dit of Le Paradis. Their plot is on a steep south-facing slope with shallow limestone soils. The soil is so thin and poor that the vine roots grow deeply into fissures in the bedrock below. Le Paradis is an explosively aromatic wine, dense on the palate with a broad mineral character kept in check by a sinuous acidity that keeps things lively.

Vacheron is mainly a “silex” producer. Silex (flint) is found primarily in the eastern part of the appellation (and also across the river in Pouilly Fumé) and almost all of Vacheron’s holdings are on this hard, minerally soil type. Flint produces vertical, long-aging Sancerre bottlings and the Vacheron boys’ biggest aim is to let this shine.

Winery Notes

Regarded as one of Sancerre’s greatest estates and the first to be certified biodynamic, cousins Jean-Dominique and Jean-Laurent Vacheron, Domaine Vacheron produces consistently delicious and structured wines from flinty soils. Fruit is organic, hand-harvested, and fermented naturally with indigenous yeasts, leading to wines that show a serious sense of place. The cousins have become a benchmark for earth-driven Sauvignon Blanc worldwide. 

The Vacherons without question are Sancerre’s leading winemaking clan. From the family’s pioneering work in identifying and exploring the region’s top terroirs to their leading position in biodynamic viticulture, there are few if any artisans today in Sancerre as exacting or as respected.

The estate’s peerless older vines, planted and cultivated by generations of family members, are cared for fastidiously. Yet it is the their singlevineyard wines—terroir-based selections recalling the painstaking work of Burgundian monks in the Côte d’Or—that have shown the world the heights and complexity that Sancerre can reach.

Organic

Biodynamic