Coeur Vaillant Sauvignon Blanc Caroline Bain 2020

Coeur Vaillant Sauvignon Blanc Caroline Bain 2020, biodynamic wine, ‘silex’ flint, clay and limestone soils in Pouilly Fume, stunning wine, rich, pure, complex, mineral, the best of Pouilly Fume.  One thinks of Pouilly Fume as a crisp wine very often, perhaps with a slight whiff of smoke on the nose but in reality we just think it is there.  Many of the standard versions of the wine are like this and are pretty dull.  Although not labelled as Pouilly Fume, the wine from Caroline has the true mark of a ‘vin de terroir’ and the Silex soils where the vines lay.  The wine is rich and profound rather than crisp.  But it also has that mineral tension which balances the body to make it sappid and moreish, the hall mark of a great white wine.  For me, it goes with almost anything but try rich cheese tart, or if you can get it, fresh water fish dishes.

Caroline Bain decided she wanted to make her own wine after years of working with her well known biodynamic wine maker husband, Alexandre Bain. His wines have always had a reputation for style and complexity and also for being a bit different in the region of Tracy Sur Loire in Pouilly Fume. This is the original home of Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire and has a world wide reputation for crisp, slightly smoky Sauvignon Blanc on a similar if not higher level to neighbouring Sancerre just over the river. In reality, like Sancerre, many of the Pouilly wines flatter to deceive and much of the complexity derived from the flinty 'Silex' soils is lost in the standardisation of modern production techniques.

Alexandre and Caroline Bain have always gone against convention and using biodynamic principles have aimed to capture the purity and depth of Sauvignon on this soil. Alexandre has often come to blows with the Pouilly Fume appellation as a result, and thus labels his wines Vin de France. Caroline follows very much the same mentality as her husband and her wines are equally if not more profound and characteristic of the region and soil.

Caroline works 2.5 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc vines spread across two plots in Tracy-Sur-Loire, within the Pouilly-Fumé AOC, labelling her wines VDF (Vin de France), gives her the freedom she is looking for in her winemaking. Strange to think that coming out of the appellation gives progressive forward thinking wine makers freedom.  Does this tell us something about the old fashioned and suffocating approach of the appellation system?

Her first vintage of Sauvignon Blanc is a testament to her no compromise approach, biodynamic in vines, no fining, filtration, sulphur or manipulation of any kind. The wines spends 30 months maturing on the lees before bottling. This wine is simply stunning to drink and represents Sauvignon Blanc in its finest expression.