Claude Riffault - Vin de France Echalas Blanc 2020 (750ml)

Robert Parker 95-96 points

"The 2020 Echalas En Blanc offers a super intense but fine and almost classic bouquet of bright (passion) fruits and crushed flint stones. From the nose I wouldn't think this is a Vin de France that is not classified as Sancerre AOP. Strange world we are living in! On the palate, the 2020 Echalas reveals fine and refreshing phenols, yes, but nothing disturbing here since the wine has power and concentration as well as this stimulating pink grapefruit bitterness and freshness. This is a lush, round and elegant, very intense and powerful Sancerre with fine tannins, vegetal notes and an enormously firm and refreshing structure. It is possibly not fully dry but in perfect inner balance. The finish is powerful, concentrated, juicy and tannic, with fine bitters, revealing great aging potential. This is an undercover Sancerre giant with lots of grip and (Pinot Noir) character as well as a very long and tensioned finish. Styria's Armin Tement, who also likes to intermingle the phenols of Sauvignon Blanc with the salts of the terroir and fully ripe fruit, would love it. To be bottled in March, tasted over a period of 11 days (!) in January 2022."

Wine Advocate 95-96 

The 2020 Echalas En Blanc offers a super intense but fine and almost classic bouquet of bright (passion) fruits and crushed flint stones. From the nose I wouldn't think this is a Vin de France that is not classified as Sancerre AOP. Strange world we are living in! On the palate, the 2020 Echalas reveals fine and refreshing phenols, yes, but nothing disturbing here since the wine has power and concentration as well as this stimulating pink grapefruit bitterness and freshness. This is a lush, round and elegant, very intense and powerful Sancerre with fine tannins, vegetal notes and an enormously firm and refreshing structure. It is possibly not fully dry but in perfect inner balance. The finish is powerful, concentrated, juicy and tannic, with fine bitters, revealing great aging potential. This is an undercover Sancerre giant with lots of grip and (Pinot Noir) character as well as a very long and tensioned finish. Styria's Armin Tement, who also likes to intermingle the phenols of Sauvignon Blanc with the salts of the terroir and fully ripe fruit, would love it. To be bottled in March, tasted over a period of 11 days (!) in January 2022.

Stéphane Riffault has presented another great vintage after the superb 2019s, which I still tend to prefer. But on the other hand, 2020 is still a very young vintage that developed so enormously well over days in the bottle that I won't argue against what Stéphane says: "2019 shows very well today, even better than 2020, I agree, but in few years I assume the 2020s will be the more interesting wines." The biggest difference between 2020 and 2019 is the level of tartaric acid in the grapes at harvest. "The 2020s are a bit higher in alcohol but lower in pH compared to 2019, and their sustainability on the palate makes me very happy. Since the 2020 alcoholic fermentations went through more dynamic, we find these tropical fruit aromas on the nose at the moment, especially in wines from limestone kimmerdigian soils, but with bottle aging the terroir will shine through much more prominently." Next to Stéphane's two impressive monoparcelle cuvées, which are vinified in 20-hectoliter foudres for 18 months, the Echalas was aged in three-year-old 350-liter François Frères oak barrels. It will be released as Vin de France since a part of the vineyards were declassified by the INAO and cannot be marketed under the Sancerre AOP. "After 40 years of planting vines here, this was a big disappointment for us," reports Stéphane. However, he has made a fabulous Sancerre-like wine here in 2020 that would have surely become one of the appellation's finest of the 2020 vintage if not of younger history.