2023 Vincent Doucet Sancerre 750 ml

“Just got to town. Short trip—got something you gotta taste."

Our friend Jeff’s text got straight to the point. And for Jeff, you clear your schedule.

A few hours later, we were sitting at Bouchon’s bar with a seafood tower and salmon rillettes in front of us. He he pulled a bottle of Sancerre out of his bag. “These guys are maybe a ten minute drive away from each other,” he said, gesturing to the new wine. “Fourth generation winemakers, everything you want in Sancerre—I found them on my trip last month, and I don’t know how they’re still under the radar.”

The village of Sury-en-Vaux, in Sancerre’s northwest, is quietly turning into one of the great homes for under-the-radar Sancerre stars. Domaine Pastou is based there, and so too is vigneron Vincent Doucet, who calls the hamlet of Plessis within Sury-en-Vaux his home.

Doucet owns lands in prime plots of south- and southwest- facing vineyards with prized clay-limestone soils. That mixture is coveted for its pH and water-holding capabilities, which create an energetic verve in Doucet’s wines that was so appealing to us. The estate practices lutte raisonnée—an organic-based sustainability model in the vineyards, cultivating the vines with hoes and limiting the number of sprays they have to use.

In the winery, things are kept classic and simple—the wines are pressed with a modern bladder press, carefully settled, then fermented and aged in stainless steel, with a racking after three months to help with fruit purity. After all, when you have great vineyards, you don’t need to do much else.