Sancerre (check out our Ultimate Guide to Sancerre) season has begun, and we’ve got the perfect wine to kick it off:  Lucien Crochet’s 2023 Sancerre Blanc “Croix de Roy”.

Crochet has long been one of the best in the entire Loire, and a cornerstone of the Neal Rosenthal portfolio for over 40 years. They have some of the best plots in the village of Bué, where the domaine is based, as well as Vinon and Crézancy (yes, like Burgundy or Champagne, Sancerre has its own set of villages with distinct personalities). 

Crochet bottles his best plots separately, and Croix de Roy is an expression of Sancerre’s “Terres Blanches”. This is a particularly interesting soil that looks, to the naked eye, almost completely white (hence “blanche”), as a result of flat limestones that cover the soils. Beneath the stones, however, you have deep clay soils that give the wine roundness and power. 

Some “bistro” Sancerres are light and simple in an innocuous sort of way, while at the other end of the spectrum you find highly structured Sancerres that require years of patient cellaring. We like how Croix de Roy finds a happy medium between the two. It is an easy enough wine to enjoy with tonight’s dinner, with enough nuance to keep it clearly outside the zone of innocuity. It is also a wine that you can age for a couple of years and it will pick up yet further complexity. 

Our advice? Grab a few bottles and drink them whenever you feel like it. Maybe you’ll end up discovering one or two at the back of your wine fridge in a couple of years time, and you’ll be in for a happy surprise.

Lucien Crochet Sancerre La Croix du Roy 2023 - $39.99