Is Sancerre Wine Value It? Sommeliers Are at a Crossroads

On the nook of Crosby and Spring streets in New York Metropolis stands Balthazar, purple awnings fluttering, sidewalk tables full and a gentle parade of Sancerre rolling by way of its service doorways. Right here, says wine director Rebecca Banks, Sancerre is ordered by the pallet—that’s 56 instances at a time—and its demand is proof against season. It’s constantly the No. 1 glass pour at $26, outpacing the second hottest white wine by the glass, Chablis, by 1,500 glasses final 12 months. 

This affection for Sancerre is, after all, not totally new; it’s been a staple Parisian bistro glass pour for ages. The Nineteen Seventies ushered an affinity for all issues French (and a growth in Gallic cooks opening eating places) in the US—and with it got here Sancerre. In 1982, Patricia Wells, then the restaurant critic for the Worldwide Herald Tribune in Paris, wrote: “The dry, flinty white Sancerre is a wine with spine, one that’s merely for consuming and having fun with fairly than pontificating about.” 

Then, as now, Sancerre isn’t just a wine, however a model, and for the myriad people who stroll right into a restaurant and order a glass of Sancerre™, the inference is obvious. Banks, who labored in trend earlier than transitioning into wine in 2004, recollects “coming into Balthazar with a earlier boss in ’98 or ’99 and she or he stated, ‘We’re going to take a seat down and order a glass of Sancerre and moules frites.’ And I understood that that is what you do as an grownup within the working world.” Sancerre carries the enchantment of being each subtle and informal; it’s French, however nonetheless straightforward sufficient for English audio system to pronounce. 

Additionally it is, for an rising variety of restaurant wine consumers, persona non grata. Many now refuse to hold it, citing every little thing from its rising costs to imbalanced price-to-quality ratio to being philosophically at odds with pure wine. (To be clear, we’re speaking concerning the larger-production, “reasonably”priced wines right here—not the often-outstanding midrange Sancerres from producers like Gérard Boulay or top-tier ones from names like Edmond Vatan and François Cotat.) “I can’t even recall an precise Sancerre AOC wine that I might pour by the glass; they’re too costly,” says Mackenzie Hoffman, wine director at Stir Loopy in Los Angeles.

The joke about Sancerre is that almost all of its trustworthy worshippers don’t even know that it’s constructed from sauvignon blanc. So, simply in case, a fast primer: Sancerre is a area in the midst of France’s Loire Valley, planted with about 6,000 acres of sauvignon blanc vines (in addition to pinot noir, which is garnering its personal following—a narrative for one more time). It’s not at all times straightforward to develop grapes there; the climate is unstable, which implies that some years, equivalent to 2021, producers can lose the lion’s share, some 70 % of their crop—not nice for a wine that has turn into a restaurant crucial. “2022 was a extra regular manufacturing 12 months, and on the heels of 2021, individuals simply went bonkers,” says Whitney Schubert, French portfolio supervisor for importer Polaner Alternatives. “That they had not been satiated within the earlier classic and the wine that got here in simply evaporated.” Demand is just not slowing. The Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins du Centre-Loire stories that in 2023, of the almost 2 million instances of Sancerre blanc produced, 32 % was exported to the U.S., 6 % greater than in 2022. 

Eric Harris, wine director at Durham, North Carolina’s Nanas, says he used to purchase Sancerre wholesale at $144 a case for his by-the-glass pour a decade in the past; as we speak, he’s paying $240 a case for Jean Reverdy’s Sancerre, which interprets to $21 a glass on the restaurant. These worth will increase, a results of intermittent shortage, demand and standard-issue inflation, have led many sommeliers to rethink the “regardless of the buyer needs” adage in favor of providing a wine they really feel is a greater worth. Usually these wines come from neighboring areas.

“There are just a few Sancerre satellite tv for pc appellations sommeliers will pour, in order to not cannibalize the remainder of the by-the-glass record,” says Schubert, pointing to appellations like Menetou-Salon, Quincy and Coteaux du Giennois. These areas are equally outlined by ribbons of Kimmeridgian limestone soil, the vaunted grime of Sancerre, and produce wines from sauvignon blanc. The relative obscurity of those areas implies that the wines are sometimes priced extra affordably, making it potential to incorporate them by the glass within the $15 vary. That stated, Harris notes that he’d initially had a $15 glass of Menetou-Salon from Domaine Chavet on the Nanas record, however as soon as he was in a position to get his palms on the Reverdy Sancerre, he swapped it in; gross sales had been double that of the Menetou at $5 extra per glass. Such is the ability of Sancerre™. 

For the pure wine inclined, it’s the philosophical repute of Sancerre that has stored it off present wine lists. “Consistency is the final word objective for lots of these wines,” says Ellis Srubas-Giammanco, sommelier at New York’s new Penny restaurant, pointing to the broad use of mechanical farming and added yeast within the area. “I feel we’re getting previous the narrative that an appellation on the label essentially interprets to high quality,” he says, pointing to the proliferation of declassified wines throughout France. 

At Penny, Srubas-Giammanco retains two Sancerres from Vincent Gaudry on his by-the-bottle record (“I at all times wish to help his wines; they’ve transparency and depth and don’t style like most Sancerre in the easiest way potential,” he says) priced at $90 and $125. In terms of by-the-glass choices, he directs Sancerre drinkers, these searching for a “a shiny, crisp, contemporary white wine that’s not overly weighty,” to pinot blanc from Domaine Schoffit in Alsace or Spanish xarel-lo from Bodega Clandestina. In his estimation, the one who is available in searching for Sancerre (and so they do, on a regular basis) is just asking for a wine that’s “contemporary, salty, food-friendly, and it’s not overly demanding.” Directing that visitor to a lesser-known area that, he says, ticks much more of these bins than a lower-priced Sancerre, is a larger service to that drinker.

Hoffman of Stir Loopy likewise at all times has “a white wine in a ‘Sancerre type’ that anchors the by-the-glass white wine choices.” In that slot, she is at present pouring a weissburgunder from Germany’s Pfalz area, although she’s additionally subbed in Austrian grüner veltliner and aligoté from Burgundy. “The demand for this type sustains no matter traits,” she says.

Most sommeliers at the moment are inevitably confronted with the choice to embrace a juggernaut of a wine that can cannibalize gross sales of the opposite wines on their record, or clarify to visitors why it’s not there and what is going to fulfill them as an alternative. “[It] isn’t going away any time quickly,” says Evelyn Goreshnik, wine director of Final Phrase Hospitality and purchaser for Michael’s in Los Angeles. “Sancerre everybody is aware of, and lots of love.”