Critic ratings
robert_parker
2020
Rating:
91
–92
The very first 2020 vintage I have tasted this year comes from Stéphane Riffault and is his 2020 Sancerre Rose La Noue. The intensely salmon colored wine has changed its style toward red wine, specifically Pinot Noir, and offers an intense, concentrated and highly attractive bouquet of ripe peaches, lychees and other tropical fruits along with red berry, floral and delicate earthy aromas. Vinified in oak and to be bottled in March this year, this is a mouth-filling yet vinous Pinot with nice purity and mineral freshness. The wine is a seriously structured and finely biting Sancerre with cherry and red berry aromas on the finish. It is very much on the fruity side at this early stage but balanced, vital, fresh, highly stimulating and lean rather than big. This is a pink red wine, and I wouldn't drink it too early if you don't want to waste its true talents. Try it on Christmas at the earliest, and if it isn't this year, it's fine next year or even 2023 as well. To be released in March 2021. Tasted in February 2020.
robert_parker
2017
Rating:
91
–91
From a southeast-facing vineyard on argilo-calcaire (terre blanche and marl) soils, Riffault's pale pink 2017 Sancerre Rose La Noue opens with a fine, deep and pure bouquet of red fruits intertwined with floral and refreshing mineral notes of crushed wet stones, leaves and a dash of lime juice. From 30- to 58-year-old vines, this is a medium to full-bodied, intense and elegant rosé with concentrated and perfectly selected fruit and a ripe structural complex of fine acidity and tannins. It has an excellent, tight, long and intense finish. Bottled after five months on the lees, in March of the following year. Tasted in January 2021.
robert_parker
2022
Rating:
92
–92
Aromas of gooseberry, spices, grapefruit, oak and blood orange preface the 2022 Sancerre Rose La Noue, a juicy, round, enveloping and slightly sweet Sancerre rosé that finishes long and fruity. Keep it for one or two years in the cellar to improve it.
robert_parker
2011
Rating:
86
–87
Due to have been bottled the day after I tasted it in mid-April, the Riffault 2011 Sancerre Rose La Noue emphasizes ripe strawberry and cherry, with notes of cherry pit offering counterpoint, but without the vivacity found in the 2010 to balance its sense of creaminess. The upshot here is certainly also much less distinctively Sancerre character than in the corresponding 2010, and I would plan on consumption within the coming year.
I was delighted to at last meet young Stephane Riffault (son of this 36-acre estate's namesake) and to taste his entire range of wines, one so unexpectedly extensive that - while I tasted the 2011 and 2010 collections complete - shortage of time and of sample bottles from earlier vintages at his cellar meant that I was by no means able to fill in all of the gaps in my experience since tasting for issue 190. While I could rest relatively easy not having tasted the 2009s, I was sorry that I could experience only one additional wine - but what a one! - of 2008, the vintage from which Riffault's Les Boucauds had so memorably introduced me to this domaine. If - as there is ample reason to anticipate - this young vigneron's expertise only increases; and, more proximately, his 2010s go the way of (let alone surpass) the bottle evolution of the two 2008s I have experienced ... then watch out! Make no mistake: this address in the hamlet of Maison Salle (outside Sury-en-Vaux) is now one of the five or six most exciting estates in the Sancerre appellation. All fruit has since 2008 been picked by hand and sorted on a vibrating belt. Three state-of-the-art presses are employed to permit the leisurely, gentle pressing Riffault deems essential and which no doubt accounts for some of the striking clarity, purity, and textural refinement of his results. He ferments most of his whites in stainless steel but certain lots in non-new barrel ("above all for the sake of texture by working the lees," he explains); while his Pinots ferment exclusively in cement before being transferred to barrel. Harvest in 2011 began September 5 and finished by the 15th, with results whose consistent success (as judged prior to bottling, anyway) should not be overlooked simply due to my notes being juxtaposed with those on an exceptional 2010 collection which Riffault, too, is willing to concede that he nailed! (I made most of my notes on Riffault's sites and regimen of elevage while tasting his 2010s, and I have retained the resulting general observations as part of my tasting notes on the wines from that vintage.)
A Jon-David Headrick Selection (various importers), Asheville, NC; tel. (828) 252-8245
robert_parker
2010
Rating:
88
–88
Riffault's 2010 Sancerre Rose La Noue displays a lovely - and for this vintage and genre rare - alliance of subtle textural creaminess with bright, juicy exuberance of bitter-edged herb-tinged cherry and lime. (Perhaps this underwent partial malo-lactic transformation, though Riffault seems skeptical.) Certainly here is one of those cases where tasted truly blind one might correctly conclude "Sancerre" without realizing that the wine came from black grapes. Refreshing and bracingly bitter and chalky in finish, this will be best enjoyed over the coming year.
I was delighted to at last meet young Stephane Riffault (son of this 36-acre estate's namesake) and to taste his entire range of wines, one so unexpectedly extensive that - while I tasted the 2011 and 2010 collections complete - shortage of time and of sample bottles from earlier vintages at his cellar meant that I was by no means able to fill in all of the gaps in my experience since tasting for issue 190. While I could rest relatively easy not having tasted the 2009s, I was sorry that I could experience only one additional wine - but what a one! - of 2008, the vintage from which Riffault's Les Boucauds had so memorably introduced me to this domaine. If - as there is ample reason to anticipate - this young vigneron's expertise only increases; and, more proximately, his 2010s go the way of (let alone surpass) the bottle evolution of the two 2008s I have experienced ... then watch out! Make no mistake: this address in the hamlet of Maison Salle (outside Sury-en-Vaux) is now one of the five or six most exciting estates in the Sancerre appellation. All fruit has since 2008 been picked by hand and sorted on a vibrating belt. Three state-of-the-art presses are employed to permit the leisurely, gentle pressing Riffault deems essential and which no doubt accounts for some of the striking clarity, purity, and textural refinement of his results. He ferments most of his whites in stainless steel but certain lots in non-new barrel ("above all for the sake of texture by working the lees," he explains); while his Pinots ferment exclusively in cement before being transferred to barrel. Harvest in 2011 began September 5 and finished by the 15th, with results whose consistent success (as judged prior to bottling, anyway) should not be overlooked simply due to my notes being juxtaposed with those on an exceptional 2010 collection which Riffault, too, is willing to concede that he nailed! (I made most of my notes on Riffault's sites and regimen of elevage while tasting his 2010s, and I have retained the resulting general observations as part of my tasting notes on the wines from that vintage.)
A Jon-David Headrick Selection (various importers), Asheville, NC; tel. (828) 252-8245
robert_parker
2013
Rating:
90
–90
I was never seeking a favorite Rosé in my life, however, the 2013 Sancerre Rosé La Noue is one of the most beautiful Rosés I have had in my life (at least in 2014). This delicate, refreshing and transparent 100% Pinot Noir, which got its color through a light skin-contact maceration, reveals a beautifully aromatic bouquet of strawberries, raspberries and redcurrant intertwined with citric and floral aromas. Coming from the corresponding 2.5-hectare vineyard parcel on Terres Blanches and Kimmeridgian marl soils with vines that are 8 to 56 years old, this intense and well-balanced Rosé is deep but also has great vibrancy, nice grip and remarkable persistence. If you want to keep the summer of 2014 until next year, try this wine.
