Alphonse Mellot Rouge En Grands Champs Sancerre 2018

It's actually pretty hard to get GREAT deals on the pure, infinitely layered, broodingly LASERED brilliance that is top-flight red Sancerre (aka Pinot)...from a revered historic estate. And yet...MELLOT Sancerre Rouge is HERE...with a blazing 98 POINTS and for WHAT price?!?!

$109, rather than $175 from the winery…only ONE stack of cases in the warehouse…noooo time to be coy today!! ‘Cause this is some of the most ELECTRIC, drool-worthy, focused, inimitable, serious French MAGIC you can get. And get it you must, if you’re driven to obtain the truly exceptional stuff. Sweet mercy, 98 a-thousand-percent-deserved points!! “...a perfect medium-bodied richness and long, long fresh finish that is full of elegant mineral character. Such a beautiful, harmonious wine” the Tasting Panel proclaimed.

Count on Mellot to execute flat-out EXQUISITE red Sancerre. You long-time Last Bottlers know we go back more than a decade with the Mellot family. When Alphonse himself offered us this small parcel direct from his cold, labyrinthine cellar winding under the town of Sancerre...we snatched it for you with the focus of Indy grabbing the golden idol in Raiders. The Mellots are one of the oldest wine families in all of France – going back to 1513, when an ancestor was the wine advisor to King Louis the XIVth. We’re talking about nineteen CONSECUTIVE Mellot generations making wine, father to son. Oh…and all of the winemakers have had the first name Alphonse. Which obviously tickles me TO NO END. And sums up their indefatigable dedication. The current Alphonse and his sister, Emmanuelle, run the winemaking with cutting-edge technology and ancient, in-the-blood knowledge, turning out some of the most delicately COMPLEX Pinots we’re lucky enough to get our mitts on.

Let’s remind ourselves that under French wine law, any “Sancerre Rouge” must be 100% Pinot Noir. Loire Valley legislation, yo!! And in the past decade or so, with a warming climate, Sancerre rouge – when done right – can eat Burgundy's lunch! Soooo, Pinot peeps, get ready to ascend to a new level of Zelda. I've tasted tens of thousands of Pinot Noirs – from the Willamette Valley to Patagonia, Burgundy, New Zealand, to the Sonoma Coast – and these red Sancerres from Alphonse Mellot are among the best versions of the heartbreak grape produced in the entire WORLD...there, I said it!! The most authoritative French wine publication, “La Revue du Vin de France,” has called Mellot’s Sancerre reds “the most sumptuous Pinot Noirs produced in France outside Burgundy,” and we say that's an understatement. You're about to have your mind BLOWN!!

Take in the gorgeous, rich, tawny-crimson color in the glass. In the first millisecond of the first sniff comes a snap of freshness, like the first snow of the year. Then you plunge into a meadow of wildflowers tinged with that animalistic, sauvage character. Forest berries in thick cream for DAYS soaking into your tongue with this irresistible mineral saltiness, and tart red-red-red currants set ablaze. Cedar and pipe tobacco with dark plum, licorice, and iodine all building this edge that keeps my pulse quickening...Yes. SERIOUS structure, chewy, unctuous, satiny...serving cherry clafoutis and sous-bois on the spellbinding finish. Tear-to-your-eye stratosphere of wine, my friends. You saw the 98 points, right?!? Lavish it with time in the glass – better yet, get enough to cellar, 'cause at eight years old this is just getting started. I have bottles going back to 2005 that are still fresh as a daisy.

The fruit is organic and biodynamic, hurrah...from the summit of Mellot’s La Moussière estate, specifically a south-facing section in Buzançais limestone that they call Les Grands Champs: “the great fields”. Vines over 75 years old (!!) take in loads of sunshine while the chilly air blows through. Aaahhh...

This is a BIG deal, y’all. RIDONKULOUSLY low quantities up for grabs...and for the hardcore Pinot fans, this is a MUST-have!!!! GO.

FREE ground shipping on 3 or more bottles.