94pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

Situated just 100 meters from the estate, the 2022 Sancerre Les Denisottes plot spans a modest 1.3 hectares of clay and calcareous soils known as “terres blanches” in Sancerre. Evoking a pure, delicate bouquet of ripe orchard fruits, spices, pear and licorice, it’s medium to full-bodied, satiny and mouth coating with a seamless texture, a fleshy core of fruit and a tense, ethereal, delicate finish enhanced by notes of citrus. Matured for 14 months in large wood barrels, this wine has the potential to gracefully reach its 15th anniversary in fine form.

93pts Vinous

The 2022 Les Denisottes offers ripe fruit and tenderness. The clay-chalk soils provide a mouth-filling texture. And yet, it maintains a line of tension and purpose that you might not have anticipated on the first sip. The structured grip on the finish offers assurance and a frame for this wine to mature nicely. It is long and scented with nectarine, honeydew melon and subtle oak-derived nuances.

About the Winery

Domaine Claude Riffault, which has been family-owned and run for five generations, is now in the hands of Claude’s son Stéphane who is working the soil in a much more organic fashion than his father. Chemical herbicides are no longer used on the parcels and there is a heavy weed cover in most of the parcels. The family owns 33 different (and quite small) plots on steep hillsides in four different villages. Part of the vineyard is made up of limestone soil which produces while vines with great fruit and explosive aromas. They also own a smaller amount of vines on flint soil which produces wines of incredible minerality and precision. The vines are ll vinified by plot and by soil type before some are assembled to make a small number of bottlings.