Regis Minet produces the quintessential Pouilly Fume. Selected and imported by Kermit Lynch, this will be my top Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc deal of 2022. I guarantee it!
Minet's 2020 Pouilly Fume Vieilles Vignes is lively, crisp, floral, and intensely mineralic, and that is exactly the way it is supposed to be. With global shortages of Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc on the rise, I would HIGHLY recommend you buy as much of this one as you can.
2020 Regis Minet Pouilly Fume 'Vieilles Vignes'
Gorgeous Sauvignon Blanc from the grapes spiritual home!
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Second generation vigneron Regis Minet makes just one wine, and this is it. One sniff and sip of this old vine Sauvignon Blanc, and you can definitely tell he puts "his all" into it. In the excellent 2020 Loire vintage, Minet produced just over 3,000 cases of this wine, and it is a stunning example of the grape and of the unique terroir that Pouilly Fume presents.
While it shares the Kimmeridgian limestone of its neighbor Sancerre, its soils also contain fragments of flint, which are presumably responsible for Pouilly Fumé’s characteristic goût de pierre à fusil, or gunflint taste. Régis Minet, a second-generation vigneron who already boasts almost forty harvests under his belt, is always happy to demonstrate how striking together two pieces of flint from his vineyard creates the smoky gunflint aroma typically associated with the wine.
In the eloquent words of Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant Store Manager, Steve Waters, “You couldn’t ask for a cleaner, fresher, flintier, or truer expression of Sauvignon Blanc. Its mouth-watering acidity, depth of flavor, and fleshy texture will have you racing back for more.” Thanks Steve, you summed it up better than I could. We'll have to have a glass of this when I'm out west next!
Oh yeah, while 2020 was glorious in the Loire, 2021 was awful on a quantitative scale. Frosts right before harvest wiped out many of Minet's grapes, and his production was only 50% of what it was in 2020. Needless to say, if you love Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc, the time to stock up is now. We will see major shortages and price increases when the 2021's make it to market.
ORDER NOW in our online store.
Josh Spurling
Owner, Operator, Wine Monger
Table Wine Asheville