Domaine Didier Dagueneau Blanc Fumé de Pouilly 2016

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

This is the domaine’s only wine that is not terroir- or soil-specific. It is mainly produced from two vineyards positioned away from the Saint-Andélain slope. Specifically, the grapes come from one parcel of 20+-year-old vines on flinty-clay soils and another in the lieu-dit of Les Coques on limestone/marl, blended with young-vine fruit from Le Bois de Saint-Andélain. This is always the domaine’s most direct and accessible expression of Pouilly-Fumé. It is also a wine that has improved drastically under Benjamin Dagueneau, now rivalling the other wines for quality and class. It fermented in a mix of new (20%) and 3- to 4-year-old barrels and matured in wood and tank.

2016 was a tiny, low-yielding year for the domaine and also one of the greats for wine quality. On release, the 2016 wines delivered the kind of lithe, energetic, crystal-fruited personalities that made this domaine so revered all those decades ago. Given the coiled power of the wines, what was remarkable was the precision and detail etched through the fruit. To put it another way, the 2016s are utterly classic Dagueneau and still have years of development ahead (like all great bottles, Dagueneau’s always benefit from extended aging in the cellar—five to ten years usually to reach their peak and easily holding for 15 to 20 years or more).

About Domaine Didier Dagueneau

Didier Dagueneau will forever be remembered as “The Wild Man of Saint-Andelain”. A true enfant terrible, he singlehandedly revolutionised viticulture and wine making in Pouilly-Fumé. Initially vilified by his peers, he was eventually revered for his success. Dagueneau tragically passed away in a light plane crash in September 2008.  His son is now in charge of the Domaine and continues to uphold his father’s remarkable legacy.

If there were any doubts surrounding the succession of this remarkable Estate, they have been emphatically quashed by the recent releases under the stewardship of Louis-Benjamin. On a recent visit Benjamin spoke of the ‘well oiled’ Estate he had inherited. “We have been experimenting here for 25 years in every area—vineyard management, winemaking, types of oak, time on lees—every single detail has been closely looked at, to establish precisely how we could produce the greatest possible wines from our soils. Today we know what we are doing. We are still progressing, and every year is different, but now any changes are at the margins.”

Benjamin grew up in the vineyards and tasting great wines with his legendary father. He completed a degree in oenology and came back to work at the Domaine in 2004 after a year with François Chidaine in Montlouis and another year with Olivier Jullien at Mas Jullien in the Languedoc. He was about to launch his own Domaine when his father tragically passed away. He was ready.

We are often asked how the wines of Louis Benjamin differ from those of his father. The wines today have the same tension and vineyard expression that they did under Didier yet there is an added generosity and texture which certainly adds something to the equation. Our impression is that Louis Benjamin is little more relaxed at harvest time than his father was and perhaps picks a tad later, searching for his idea of perfectly ripened fruit. Regardless, no matter which wine you choose, each bottle from this avant-garde grower lives in a dimension beyond being merely outstanding Sauvignon Blanc and ranks amongst the great white wines of the world.

“When his father died in September of 2008, Louis Benjamin was only 26 years old. While some things have changed since then, much remains the same. The dogs are gone, and the house has a different flair, but the meticulous attention to detail in the vineyards and the precision in the cellar have, if anything, become even more perfectionist under his direction.”

Joel B Payne, Vinous

Postscripts In 2018 Benjamin Dagueneau pulled his family Domaine out of the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. Clearly, there is no love lost (if there was ever any to lose) between Dagueneau and the authorities. Last year Louis-Benjamin burnt the last vestige of the bridge by removing every reference to Pouilly-Fumé that remained on his labels—including Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, which is now labelled as Blanc Etc… It goes without saying that at no time in history has Domaine Didier Dagueneau relied on the appellation’s name to sell its wines. If anything, this latest change only serves to underline the non-conformity of one of France’s great Domaines.

In the Vineyard

Like any great winegrower, Didier knew that the path to excellence began with careful and meticulous work in the vineyards.

The vineyards are farmed using biodynamic methods and yields are kept extremely low. On average, one worker per hectare is employed to care for the vines throughout the year. The soils are tilled, sometimes using horses, to encourage roots to grow deep in their underlying terroirs. When vines need to be replanted, there is extreme care to select only low-vigor rootstock and the best massal selection cuttings to graft.

When the time is right, the harvest is carried manually throughout the vineyards.

In the Winery

The winemaking is geared towards maintaining energy and freshness. Dagueneau’s temperature-controlled barrel room is about as frigid as any we have visited in France, and, like Lamy, Roulot, et al., the wines are rested in tank before bottling, for as long as 10 months.

Winemaking is gradually evolving, with an eye on the warming climate. The wines still ferment mainly in oak (primarily in light-toast 450- and 600-litre barrels, as well as Dagueneau’s famous 350-litre cigar barrels). However, there are now more and more Wineglobes (glass fermenters) and some ceramic eggs. The wines are also transferred to thermoregulated tanks for up to 10 months to “help firm them up”, according to Dagueneau’s longstanding chef de cave, Jean-Philippe Agisson. Yet, as always, there are no recipes here. It’s all the devil-is-in-the-detail of haute-couture viticulture and meticulous winemaking—”the assemblage of little things”, as Didier once said—that makes the difference between a good wine and a Dagueneau.

Where in the World is Domaine Didier Dagueneau?

Domaine Didier Dagueneau is based in the village of St Andelain in Pouilly-Fumé.