Pascal Cotat, “Les Monts Damnés” Sancerre

One of the world’s greatest individual sites for Sauvignon Blanc is Sancerre’s “Les Monts Damnés,” a severely steep vineyard with vines clinging to ancient maritime fossils buried within chalk-limestone soils. Made famous by the Cotat family, this exceptional parcel and the complex, intensely concentrated, age-worthy wine produced from it is second to none. Critic Robert Parker dubbed them “some of the finest Sauvignon Blancs I have ever put to my lips,” and I couldn’t agree more—especially when considering that culty Dagueneau bottles a “Monts Damnés” for triple the price. Bottom line: I’m taking Cotat every. single. time.In my opinion, a wine of this magnitude deserves to be aged and cherished because serious Sauvignon Blanc stands alongside the greatest white wines of the world—that means Grand Cru white Burgundy, too! Vintage after vintage, Pascal Cotat delivers an explosive, mineral-etched Sauvignon Blanc at its most tightly allocated; it is, quite honestly, one of the greatest bu