2021 Domaine Raimbault-Pineau Pouilly-Fume Loire 750 ml

Floating high over the Loire River in our bright orange balloon, we were primed for a relaxing morning…but Sonia Raimbault had other ideas.

It was barely after dawn but she was as animated as ever, pointing out the Sancerre plots that produce some of our members’ favorite wines. We, having gone maybe a bit too hard the night before, were a touch groggy—until something she said snapped us to attention. Gesturing across the river, she said, “And of course, over there is Pouilly-Fumé.”

You don’t really appreciate how close Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé are until you have a bird’s-eye view.

Barely six miles separate the towns of Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire, yet Sancerre basks in international glory while Pouilly-Fumé still remains an insider secret.

Pouilly-Fumé creates what The Wall Street Journal called the “French Sauvignon Blanc we should be drinking more often”—and this bottle from the Raimbaults fully ratifies that assessment. Flinty and bright, with an exotic nose and seductive richness married to captivating zest on the finish, it absolutely blows away most Sancerre at its price.

Domaine Raimbault-Pineau goes back 13 generations in the Loire. That’s 400 years of know-how that got put to good use in 2021, a vintage that produced brilliant wines—that is, if you had the farming chops to handle a rollercoaster of a season.

It started with frost wiping out a third of the crop in Sancerre. A wet, humid summer took some vignerons’ losses beyond 50%, but the fruit was saved by a miraculous coda: a sunny and dry end. When the grapes were pressed, it became clear that the wines were going to be fantastic—including racy, bright bottlings like this one.