Monday started early the morning for us, six am, in Paris.  Mother and I hustled to the train, sans breakfast, down to Orly, where we had reserved a car.  From there, down to Sancerre for a few appointments.  Sounds easy.  Well, nothing, my friends, is ever easy to me, at least not when I have appointments in a place two hours away that I’ve never seen ( except in wine books, of course), and into a countryside in which I’ve never ventured.  I’m not saying, I’m just saying.  Just leaving Paris alone was enough to send me over. Let’s put it this way . . . by the time we finally navigated our way out of Paris on the correct freeway, I knew we had no chance of being on time.  And furthermore, by the time we found our way to St. Satur, it was undeniably apparent that I was in need of some Sancerre.

Our first attempt to find Hippoylte Reverdy was a failure.  Going off of maps sent to me via the importer, with no real directions other than names of small towns and intersections and then a big X marks the spot, as though we were on a treasure hunt, we without a doubt missed the mark initially.  Driving though the country, the land looks scarred and barren, save the old Sauvignon Blanc vines that hang hunched low, twisted and fat and creep across the valley in tight, narrow rows.  The white and brown soils off set one another, and the contrast gives the valley a brooding air, especially on an overcast day, with no sun in the sky, and me, lost, and growing rather aggitated.  We jaunt through the town in which the winery is supposed to be in, but, as I soon find out, there are multiple Reverdy’s in Chandoux, and none of which had Hippolyte in the title.  I finally turn the car around and head back to the hotel, defeated, and am beginning to think it is all unraveling before me.

The funny thing is, we returned to the hotel and had the innkeeper phone the winery to tell him what the scrore was, and to get better directions for us.  We got the directions, got some lunch, and headed out again.  I abdicated myself as driver, and turned the wheel over to mom. Yes, my mother drove me to the winery. This time we found it, somehow, I’m still not sure, because the directions that were given to us were not congruent to the method in which we found the property.  Call it dumb luck if you will.  At any rate, Michel Reverdy greeted us upon our arrival, jovial and smiling, “enchante’s” flying all over the place.  His laughter was childlike, and one felt very at ease in his presence. He didn’t fit the image of the jaded, crotchety, cigarette smoking vigneron whose every other word is ‘merde’. His niece was in town from Paris for the Easter weekend and was being employed as an interpreter for us, which made all the difference.

Michel Reverdy’s family has been making wine for generations. He employs three people full time, two of which work in the vineyards, one in the cellar, while he floats around and fills in the blanks. He works with 14 hectares (about 34 acres), of Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, and he never buys fruit from anyone else. His vineyards consist of two of the three soil types of Sancerre. The first, a pebbly limestone soil, which produces wines that are softer, more fruit forward, charming, and the second, the famous Kimmerigien soil, a calecerous clay, found all the way from Sancerre up into Chablis district to the east. The wines from Kimmerigien soils produce wines of great depth, minerality, acid and structure.

Sancerre Blanc is his cornerstone wine, followed by an unfiltered Sancerre Rouge, and he also produces a handful of Rose. When I asked him why he didn’t make more Rose for the US market he told me that he didn’t think Americans liked Rose. Interesting, I thought. I wonder if he really believed that, because it’s obviously not true. Granted, wines like White Zinfandel are certainly out of favor, and have been for some time, but real Rose made from Pinot Noir grapes in Sancerre by a talented winemaker will always have a calling, at least for me. But that’s fine. Less is more when it comes to these things.

On that note, we then tasted though the wines. We got a sneak peak of the 2008 Sancerre Blanc, which he believes will be even better than the 07’s, which says a lot because the ’07 on our list at Tabla is incredible. It’s the return of the classic Sancerre flavors and structure. No more tropical fruit bombs of ’05 and ’06. I want acid and minerality and hay and grass and lemon in my Sancerre! He agreed, and was keen to point out that the ’08 were going to be even more amazing than the ‘07’s. In tank, it’s tough to decipher sometimes how a wine will turn out, but the wines we tasted out of two separate tanks were incredibly well built, full of bright fruit and strong acidity. We also tasted a “peculiar” wine (his words). It was a barrel fermented white from 2003, the year of the great heat wave. It was rich and butter fatty . . . the oak hurdled out of the glass. It was a beautifully made, but he brought out the same wine but from ’05, a warm vintage, but not nearly as hot as ’03. I preferred the ’05, simply because the ’03 wasn’t as reflective of the potential of Sauvignon Blanc in barrel as it was about the oak and, in my opinion, the over ripeness of the grapes that year. Gorgeous still, but for me, the ’05 had more elegance and actually tasted like Sauvignon Blanc.

When he niece had to head out and get the train back to Paris, we left shortly after. As a gesture of goodwill, he gave us a bottle of the ’07 Rose, and we were on our way. My first tasting experience was a good one, and I am grateful to Monsieur Reverdy for his hospitality and his willingness to see us after we had missed our original appointment. For me it meant a lot, since it was a holiday, and he certainly didn’t have to be so accommodating. For that, and I told him, his wines will always have a place on my wine lists . . . and also so as long as I get my yearly allocation of Rose.