DOMAINE ALAIN CAILBOURDIN Pouilly-sur-Loire

This estate of 19 hectares was set up some 30 years ago by expat Parisian Alain Cailbourdin. Spread throughout the various crus of Pouilly, with a high percentage of old and low yielding vines, the estate produces a range of Pouillys which are marked by a lovely purity and intensity of ripe fruit, and a fine, steely cut. The Cornets is grown on Kimmeridgian marl, and possesses crystalline purity and textbook minerality, whilst Les Cris is grown on the estate’s finest south-west facing Portlandian limestone slopes, and is a wine marked by greater richness and “gras”, and which arguably repays greater patience, perhaps a minimum of 2 years in bottle, before it shows at its best. Both are superb.

2011 Pouilly-Fumé ‘Les Cornets’ Alain Cailbourdin “Smells, gloriously, of cold rain on chalky soil and crushed lemon verbena leaves. A lot of flavour and electric energy coursing through this wine. That cool lemony sage and box and almost a wild herb element. Earth and steely sky. Begs for tarragon and river fish and goats cheese. Good stuff. So good.” Tamlyn Currin on jancisrobinson.com April 2013.

2013 Pouilly-Fumé ‘Les Cris’, Alain Cailbourdin. A smoky nose, quite reserved in style, tightly packed in, straight and appealing in its rather reticent character. White fruit. The palate shows a rather vinous nature from the outset, concentrated, with good substance and a nice frame of light acids and pithy fruit. Attractive, very polished and harmonious. 17/20. Chris Kissack, 2014

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Loic Cailbourdin, Alain’s son, photographed in London.