2018 Langlois-Chateau Chateau Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex Sancerre Blanc 750 ml

What can't great Sancerre do? The top class bottlings are uniquely capable wines—with precision and cut to provide a squeeze of brightness to go with any meal, and a complexity and nuance that marks them as world class. The catch is that the true top of the heap has become unfortunately expensive—try finding a single-vineyard bottle from Cotat, Boulay, or Vacheron under $50 these days.

Langlois-Chateau's Château Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex solves those problems. It's a top-tier single-vineyard offering from one of the most important houses in the Loire. The estate is owned by Bollinger, giving them the backing to worry about quality more than profits—and this bottle is a remarkable display of that quality at its usual $33 price. We're able to take that value to the next level and offer it to our members at $10 off, just $23 per bottle, turning it into an outright steal.

We first tasted this bottling at a garden party hosted by Margaret—one of those wonderful people with impeccable taste who makes entertaining look so easy that it annoys you. She put on a beautiful spread, with a vibrantly colored tomato galette, grilled chicken, and a massive tray of glistening oysters on ice. To pair with this abundance? Just one wine, the Sancerre in question.

It was a no-brainer with each and every piece of food on our plates and a stellar example of Sancerre—no mean feat in a region overrun with banal wines. Serious enough that we couldn't put it down, this 2018 was equally happy to be the star or the supporting actor to a beautiful lunch. No wonder Margaret loved it—and she was more than happy to point us to our mutual friend from Bollinger who set her up with the bottling.

Langlois-Chateau's Château Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex pours a beautiful, classic color: straw with hints of green around the edge. On the nose, Langlois-Chateau has managed to imbue the normally boisterous Sauvignon Blanc with elegance and complexity—there's a mélange of citrus zest and tart white peaches on the nose, with an understated floral freshness providing a beautiful contrast. The palate is emphatic, with lemongrass, white nectarines, and a beam of chalky minerality that drives a literally mouth-watering finish. It begs for another sip, then for food, then for another sip—and the bottle disappears.

Château Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex ticks every box to qualify for greatness in Sancerre. It's owned by the quality-obsessed Bollinger Champagne house and hails from one of the choicest plots in the appellation: A beautifully farmed rolling hill of silex (flint) soils—the same kind that provide wines like Dagueneau's Silex and Vacheron's Les Romains with their trademark minerality and nuanced personalities. Combine that with a careful upbringing in stainless steel tanks to preserve fruit and freshness and you have an absolutely classic bottling.

Inexpensive enough to keep around in bulk, complex and interesting enough to be the star of your own dinner parties, this will be the wine that you never seem to have enough of. There’s one solution to that problem, though.