Our Growers:

The Appellation Pouilly-Fumé may be the finest expression of Sauvignon Blanc in France. Within the Appellation Pouilly-Fumé, Saint-Andelain is perhaps its most renowned commune. And within the commune of Saint-Andelain, Bernard Bouchié, and now his son Arnaud, own 22 hectares of the very finest of its vineyard sites. The domaine was established four generations ago by Robert Poirier. The land, at the top of a hill overlooking the gentle slopes down towards the Loire, is close to a small wood where foxes lived, thus the name of the estate, "La Renardière." The oldest vines of the domaine are 65 years old. Some of Bouchié's finest lieux-dits--La Renardière, le Calvaire, les Chailloux--occupy the upper slopes of the butte where the best sites are.

Bouchié presses his grapes using the extremely gentle pneumatic press, after which the solids or "gross" lees that remain in the pressed juice are allowed to settle out naturally by gravity. He then racks off the juice and conducts a long, cool fermentation on the "fine" lees to add fat and flavor to the wine. Bouchié ages his wine in vat rather than in wood, because

he believes that wood masks the fruit and florality of the Sauvignon Blanc. To the fruity aromas of cassis-flower, pink grapefruit, fig and gooseberry, and the floral aromas of violet and iris, the Saint-Andelain terroir adds strong, rich notes of mineral, smoke and flintstone which make La Renardière richer as the wine ages in bottle. It is a very complete, clean wine that strikes an excellent balance between fruit, florality and minerality. Bouchié's wine can best be summed up as beautiful rather than powerful.