2022 Domaine Langlois-Chateau Chateau de Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex Sancerre Loire Valley 750 ml

Sancerre is still the hottest category in French white wine, and the region’s standard-bearing Sauvignon Blanc is steadily gaining popularity—even with the headwind of relentless price increases.

This is especially true of the best single-vineyard wines, like those from the Cotat cousins, Boulay, or Vacheron. Wines in this elite class are getting very scarce indeed. When you can find them, they’re often $60 and up!

But not the Château de Fontaine-Audon’s 2021 Terroir Silex.

Backed by excellent Wine Access member-ratings, this top-tier single-vineyard offering comes from one of the most important houses in the Loire. The estate is owned by Bollinger, so Fontaine-Audon’s focus is more on quality than profits—and this bottle displays that in remarkable fashion. 

We first tasted this wine at a party hosted by our friend Margaret—one of those wonderful people with impeccable taste and a knack for entertaining. She put out a beautiful spread, with a vibrantly colored tomato galette, grilled chicken, and a massive tray of glistening oysters on ice. The pairing with this abundance? Just one wine: today’s Sancerre.

Château Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex ticks every box that qualifies it for Sancerre greatness. It's owned by the legendary Bollinger Champagne house and hails from one of the choicest plots in the appellation. It’s a beautifully farmed rolling hill of silex (flint) soils—the same kind where the phenomenal grapes grow for Dagueneau's Silex and Vacheron's Les Romains bottlings. Combine that with a careful upbringing in stainless-steel tanks to preserve fresh-fruit flavors and you have an absolutely classic bottling.