2019 Chateau de Fontaine-Audon Terroir Silex Sancerre Loire Valley 750 ml

Sancerre might be the hottest category in French wine, and the region’s standard-bearing Sauvignon Blanc continues to steadily gain popularity, even with the headwind of relentless price increases.

Château de Fontaine-Audon’s 2019 Terroir Silex is a top-tier single-vineyard offering from one of the most important houses in the Loire. The estate is owned by Bollinger, so Fontaine-Audon has the backing to worry about quality more than profits—and this bottle is a remarkable display of that quality.

We first tasted this wine at a garden party hosted by our friend 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: this Sancerre.

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

Affordable enough to keep a case around but complex and intriguing enough to be the star of any dinner party, this will be the wine that you never seem to have enough of.