Wonderfully overlapping notes of lemon, grapefruit and lime zest very fresh, precise and fascinating, elegant but rich of later-summer flavours.

Le Clos de Beaujeu is one of Boulay’s ‘blue-blood’ historic sites. Boulay farms two parcels in this terroir, including one within the original clos of this vineyard, established by the monks of Beaujeu in the Middle Ages. This parcel is historically known as Le Grand Clos. For this reason, Boulay names this wine Clos de Beaujeu rather than the more ubiquitous Cul de Beaujeu. In his book Le Vignoble de Chavignol, Thibaut Boulay notes that this vineyard first appears in documents dating to 1328 as the Clausus de Bellojoco, indicating this terroir’s age-old origins. Vines on this slope of Kimmeridgian limestone and clay (terre blanches) sit between 30 and (a remarkable) 110 years old. The soils here are particularly rocky—limestone-rich and strewn with fossils—making this parcel difficult to farm. A second, even steeper parcel at a 60% gradient lies closer to the village. These southeast-facing plots make the Clos de Beaujeu the source of some of the domaine’s most structured and nervy wines. This cuvée ferments spontaneously and rests in large, upright cask (60%) and three- and four-year-old 300-litre barrels (40%) for 10 months.

Monts-Damnés (pronounced mon-dannay) is perhaps the best-known vineyard in Chavignol. Drinking great juice from this site leaves you in little doubt that Chavignol is home to some of the most textural, mineral, uplifting and sublime Sancerres. Boulay’s bottling comes from 45-year-old vines on one of the steepest inclines of this majestic vineyard, a 40° south-facing plot on terres blanches (white, chalky clay and limestone) directly adjacent to Vatan’s Clos la Néore vineyard. It’s a parcel of vines that gives a wine of great hedonism and complexity. Boulay vinifies this cuvée in three- to four-year-old Rousseau Tronçais oak casks before finishing its aging in large cask prior to bottling.