Notes from the importer, Living Wines!
Fanny Sabre shows a fine touch with her Aligoté. Aligoté is the white wine that the locals drink in Burgundy. It is gradually emerging as an interesting wine in its own right rather than playing second fiddle to Chardonnay as more talented winemakers such as Fanny show what can be achieved with this grape. It is not only the winemaking in this case but also the terroir because Fanny’s late father used up some of his precious land in Pommard to plant the Aligoté vines. This is a beautiful wine with great complexity, depth and beautiful structure. At a recent tasting everyone was blown away by it and kept returning to it to work out what was making it so appealing. The minerality and the complexity creeps up on you slowly. It has a lovely streak of acidity, lots of white fruit nuances, generous mouthfeel, lots going on at the end of the palate and amazing texture as well. We have always been great fans of this grape variety. However, it has always played second fiddle to Chardonnay in Burgundy. An example of this was on show in a recent review in the Petites Caves newsletter of Fanny’s Aligoté you can read the tension between what they are expected to write compared with what they wanted to write. The first part of the description was “Simple…“. This is what they are expected to write. However when you read through the rest of the review there is much more fulsome praise including “and yet the complexity wins in the mouth. Salty touches, stewed white fruits, sapidity. Magnificent structure.“