2011 Domaine Vacheron Sancerre Les Romains

Les Romains, one of the rare single-vineyard Sancerres which is grown on flint soils, is regarded as one of the benchmark wines of the appellation. However, the 2011 Sancerre les Romains of the Domaine Vacheron did not live up to its reputation when I tasted it in late July 2014. Though it was not the first days after the bottle had been opened, and even after several days it remained a demanding rigid, uncompromising austere and tart wine that was much more an expression of its very special terroir than of what many wine lovers would call a great and embracing wine. Les Romains probably never goes to your heart, but straight to your brain––if you keep your mind open. There are unripe green aromas, mostly limes and sorrel in combination with earthy flavors and truffles on the nose the first days. It is the performance on the palate that takes you with the wine because it is not only densely woven and very elegant but extremely mineral, with a very long and persistent, but by no means powerful or mighty finish. The wine just does not show up, you might think. However, the wine is not willing to show much more on the second or the third day. It got my highest respect, though, the fourth and the fifth day when the green and earthy aromas were turned into precise and refreshing flavors of flint and starfruit that had been injected with the purest perfume of citrus/lime oil. Now, the refreshingly perfumed wine reveals its depth and consistency, although it still does not offer you a hint of tropical fruit or any kind of lushness. It remains pure, though it is quite viscous on the palate and very complex in the finish as well as in the very long aftertaste where you taste the grape’s brown pips. This is an ascetic, but also enormously rich wine with huge aging potential. I would not start drinking it for the next three or four years.