Le Clos de Beaujeu is one of Boulay’s thoroughbred historic sites. Boulay farms two parcels in this terroir, including one within the original clos, established by the monks of Beaujeu in the Middle Ages. This parcel is historically known as Le Grand Clos. For this reason, Boulay names this wine Clos de Beaujeu rather than the more ubiquitous Cul de Beaujeu. In his book Le Vignoble de Chavignol, Thibaut Boulay notes that this vineyard first appears in documents dating to 1328 as the Clausus de Bellojoco, indicating this terroir’s age-old origins.

Vines on this slope of Kimmeridgian limestone and clay (terre blanches) sit between 30 and (a remarkable) 110 years old. The soils here are particularly rocky—limestone-rich and strewn with fossils—making this parcel difficult to farm. A second, even steeper parcel at a 60% gradient lies closer to the village. These southeast-facing Clos de Beaujeu plots grow some of the domaine’s most structured, verdant and nervy wines. This cuvée ferments spontaneously and rests in large, upright cask (60%) and three- and four-year-old 300-litre barrels (40%) for 10 months.

The energy is apparent from the first sniff: wet rocks, apple skin and Key lime zest waft from the glass. It’s a multifaceted, vibrant, mineral-etched Sancerre, still tightly wound on the palate, underscored by superb extract, ripe green citrus fruit and fantastic grippy length. There are also some oh-so-subtle fennel notes (related to the reduction this site always throws) on the lacy, tangy close. As impressive as this is now, this grand-cru quality wine will evolve beautifully in bottle, providing years of enjoyment ahead.

Monts-Damnés (pronounced mon-dannay) is perhaps the best-known vineyard in Chavignol. Drinking great juice from this site leaves you in little doubt that Chavignol is home to some of the most textural, mineral, uplifting and sublime Sancerre. Boulay’s bottling comes from 45-year-old vines on one of the steepest inclines of this majestic vineyard, a 40-degree south-facing plot on terres blanches (white, chalky clay and limestone) directly adjacent to Vatan’s Clos la Néorev vineyard. This parcel of vines gives a wine of great hedonism and complexity. Boulay vinifies this cuvée in three- to four-year-old Rousseau Tronçais oak casks before finishing its aging in large cask before bottling.

While the steeply sloped, south-facing Mont-Damnés is one of Chavignol’s warmest sites, this superb wine walks a perfect tightrope between ripeness and texture and that invigorating sense of tension that makes Boulay’s Sancerre so compelling. A distillate of its site, the new release is deep yet compact and rocky, awash with racy stone fruit, orange blossom and crushed oyster shell tempered by a mouthwatering mineral spine and a nibble of quinine and chalky phenolics. The marriage of density and energy is seemingly perfect. Again, give it time to blossom, or enjoy this stellar release young with ceviche, tuna tartare or sashimi—that kind of thing.

First made as a single parcel in 2010, La Côte comes from the majestic La Grande Côte vineyard (sometimes referred to as La Côte d’Amigny), a south/southeast-facing hillside on the outskirts of Chavignol. La Côte has quickly become one of the heavyweights of Boulay’s range. This is the domaine’s coolest terroir and the last to be picked. The site’s pure Kimmeridgian limestone soils and the late picking date deliver density and alluring precision on the palate. Vinified and aged in three- and four-year-old barrels, the terroir gives a more expressive style than Monts-Damnés, yet one that still bristles with tension and mineral notes.

If the vines are still relatively young by this domaine’s standards (a good 20 years all the same), they nevertheless express the mineral essence of this limestone terroir with incredible intensity. This year's tightest and most overtly mineral so far opens with a verdant palette of sweet lime and nettle alongside crystalline fruit aromas. The palate is super filigreed and focused, driven by forceful acidity and lovely purity, stretching to a super long, candied grapefruit, salt-licked finish. It has everything to go toe-to-toe with a top Premier Cru Burgundy.

This rare bottling comes from just 0.4 hectares of 70-year-old vines in the Comtesse lieu-dit at the chalky epicentre of Les Monts-Damnés. Locals have considered this vineyard the finest single terroir of Chavignol for hundreds of years. According to Thibaut Boulay, the first mention of the ‘Montdampni’ appeared in documents held by the Abbaye de Saint-Satur in 1252. In his Le Vignoble de Chavignol, Thibaut then reminds us that at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1878, the Comtesse lieu-dit was already considered a true star of the Sancerrois, its wines served on the most renowned tables of northern France. As another marker of historical reverence, the Comtesse parcel was only grafted after 1945; before that, it remained the last ungrafted white vineyard in France, as La Romanée-Conti was for red grapes.

The soil composition is pure Kimmeridgian limestone and consists of a miserly 30- to 40-centimetre layer of topsoil over solid limestone bedrock. This brings intense minerality and warmth as the rocky soil absorbs the sun’s heat and re-radiates it at night. Yet it is also a cooler, less exposed place, so it always produces fully ripe fruit and intense freshness while also finer and more restrained than a typical Monts-Damnés—hence, the historical fame.

In a word, scintillating. Harking back to the thrilling, transparent vintages of 2014 and 2017, it has diamond-cut clarity allied to perfectly ripe fruit intensity and ‘naked limestone’ mineral quality that is the hallmark of this bottling. Marked by the soil rather than the sun, this wine seemingly incorporates the greatest elements of all Boulay’s vineyards: the silk of Monts Damnés, the zest of Clos Beaujeu and saline side of La Côte—there’s also something more elemental. A grand cru in all but name, 20 years will not weary this thrill-a-minute young Sancerre.