2023 La Rive de Loire Sancerre 750 ml

By the time he started making his own wine, Antoine de la Farge knew exactly how the best Sancerre should be made: sustainable farming, hand-harvesting, native-yeast fermentation, and a gravity-flow winery. But when he looked around, he didn’t see a lot of other wineries following that recipe.

After all, he was the grandson of the immensely respected winemaker Gerard Clément, who helped create the Minetou-Salon appellation in the Loire. An obsession with quality was a given. Plus, he was sent out to learn about the wine trade for over a decade before returning home to helm the family domaine—and he worked his way up the retail wine world until he was one of the most important wine buyers in France.

That vantage point gave him a rare perspective—the chance to visit storied wineries and see how they made decisions in the vineyard in the cellar. And in case after case, the through-lines were obvious. When he returned home to the family winery in 2012, he was able to apply his expertise and elevate the wines to the next level.

For his 2023 Le Rive de Loire Sancerre, he sources primarily from plots with the famed caillottes soils of the region, dotted with hunks of hard-to-work limestone that bring brilliant minerality and zest to the wine. He farms them sustainably and then makes sure only the best bunches are selected—by hand, which is uncommon, especially for the price we were able to secure. 

That careful selection was essential, as Antoire insists on a native-yeast fermentation for this wine to build complexity, and then the wine is treated especially gently, moving only by gravity until bottling.