Domaine Didier Dagueneau, Pouilly Fume, Clos du Calvaire 2020 - 75cl

Didier Dagueneau was the wild man of Pouilly-Fumé — the vigneron who dragged Sauvignon Blanc out of the crowd and made it a wine to lay down and take seriously. He died in 2008, but his son Louis-Benjamin has held the line, farming biodynamically, picking by hand and keeping yields punishingly low. This is Sauvignon at the very top of what the grape can do.

Clos du Calvaire comes off silex — the flinty, fire-striking soil that gives Pouilly-Fumé its name and its smoke. The 2020 was naturally fermented and aged on its fine lees, so it tastes nothing like the bright, simple Sauvignon most people know. Citrus and white peach lead, then gooseberry, crushed herbs and that unmistakable gunflint minerality. It is a wine of tension and salinity rather than easy fruit, and the lees ageing lends real weight to a finish that goes on and on, stony and focused.

At around 13% it is precise rather than powerful. Drink it now with air, or cellar it — this will reward a decade or more if you have the patience.

How to Serve

Don't over-chill it. Around 10–12°C, in a white Burgundy glass rather than a small Sauvignon one, so the aromatics have room to open. A young bottle rewards an hour's air or a quick decant.

Where to Drink It

Noble Rot, where a Loire white this serious will be in very good company. J Sheekey, over a plate of native oysters. Wiltons on Jermyn Street, for turbot done properly.

Food Pairings

Pour it with a whole roast Bresse chicken, or turbot in a butter sauce. For something more classic, a nub of aged Comté or a warm Crottin de Chavignol — the Loire's own answer, and hard to beat.