Description

Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude is the stuff dreams are made out of. And it is just their entry-level. I’ll call it, as of 30th August 2021, this Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude is the best white wine I’ve drunk all year.

Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude comes off the youngest vines of the estate and includes fruit from the Kimmeridgian, Portlandian, and clay-silex terroirs. It is aged on lees in stainless steel for 6-8 months.

It is a hard wine to pin down; the flavours change and evolve, overlap and intersect. There is the purity of fruit that is lush and ripe: melons and tropical fruits. There is flint and smoke, is there a whiff of nutty, oaky, spicey. It is a complex wine! But the palate on the Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude really sings. Silky, perfectly balanced and appealing. It is very easy to convince yourself that another glass is the right way to go with this wine.

Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude may improve with bottle age, but I just want to drink it all right now. If you want to pair something with Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude, make it simple and light.

Jonathan et Didier Pabiot Pouilly Fume 2019, and all wine is eligible for at least 5% off any six bottles. And 10% off any 12 bottles. Some wines will be at a more significant discount and not subject to further discounts.

Pabiot Pouilly Fume is a family Estate of how renown. Jonathan convinced his father, Didier, to convert to organics after taking over 1.5ha of the vines planted by his grandfather and showing the improved quality of the fruit. Eventually, Didier converted all the family estate to organics in 2006 and in 2016 biodynamics.

The Estate is 20ha, and the wines from Pabiot Pouilly Fume are grown in a mix of terroir; Kimmeridgian (as seen in Chablis, Sancerre, Champagne’s Aube), Portlandian (Petit Chablis), and clay-silex. The higher up the quality levels you go, the more prominent is the Kimmeridgian soils.

Jonathan Didier Pabiot Pouilly Fume Prelude 2019 Winery Notes

“For this cuvée we use all our young vineyards between 4 and 10 years old. Planted on clay-limestone and flint clay soils in Pouilly sur Loire. Aging takes place in stainless steel tanks on the lees for around 6 to 8 months. The bottling of Prélude is always the first of the new vintage, there for the name Prélude.

Localities: Asserts, Villiers, Les Champs Piot
Grape variety: Sauvignon blanc
Surface: 3.5 Ha
Age of vines: between 4 and 10 years
Soil / Subsoil: limestone clay, limestone, flint and silica
Exposure: South, South-West
Yield: 45 Hl / Ha
Aging: 6 to 8 months, on lees in stainless steel tanks”

Pouilly Fume

Situated 200km south of Paris, Pouilly Fume is on the East Bank of the Loire River and offers a pure expression of Sauvignon Blanc. It is often overlooked for its bigger neighbour, Sancerre, but with a bit of searching, you can uncover a treasure trove of beautiful wines from Pouilly Fume. It could easily be argued that the greatest white wines from the Loire come from Pouilly Fume.

Sauvignon Blanc

Hero to many, weed to many more. Sauvignon Blanc sure does divide people. The pure expression of Sauvignon fruit is a stunning and exuberant array of tropical fruits with ripe herbs and plant material. It excels in the chalk, clay and sand of the Loire as well as the beautiful vineyards in Bordeaux for dry white and Sauternes production, where Semillon curbs its outgoing nature.

Loire Valley

The people in the know are already on this. And probably don’t want the secret to get out. The Loire makes some fantastic wines of all colours and styles, which are stupidly cheap for the quality.

Can any white wine rival Loire Valley Chenin Blanc for elegance, grace and poise in the cellar? Some Rieslings would give it a run but not much else. Chenin, whether sweet or dry, produces wines with a lovely balance. Taut, unrelenting acidity and pillowy soft fruit that sits on top. The best wines think Savennières, Vouvray and Montlouis, can age for a surprisingly long time. Sancerre and surrounds offers wine lovers a legitimate reason to drink Sauvignon Blanc! Oh, and if Muscadet (made from Melon de Bourgogne) isn’t the very best oyster wine, then I’ll eat my hat.

Get stuck into the stunning sparkling wines that give Champagne a run for its money—at the same time, being such great value that they rival Prosecco and Cava.

And the reds from Cabernet Franc that will make lovers of Burgundy or Bordeaux swoon. Oh! And the Gamay and rose wines. Delicious.

Did I mention they make my favourite sweet wines in the world?

French Wine

The land that so many New World (not European) wine producers look to emulate. To generalise about French wine, I would say it is savoury, lighter-bodied wines. They are the definition of elegant, complex. There are many styles, though. And there is a French wine for every palate. They lead the world in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in Burgundy. Sparkling Wine in Champagne. Cabernet and Merlot in Bordeaux. Syrah(Shiraz) and Grenache in the Rhone Valley. Riesling, Gewurztraminer, and Pinot Gris in Alsace. Sauvignon Blanc, and Chenin Blanc in the Loire Valley. Gamay in Beaujolais.

Wine

Wine is the result you get from fermented grape juice. There is proof of wine production dating back 8000 years ago. Fashions, innovations and many other factors have influenced the way wine has evolved over the years.

The wine grape is impressive. It contains everything you need to make grape wine except for the yeast, which lives on the outside of the skins.

Human inputs can influence the final product, including the viticulture (growing) choices. And the winemaker can shape the wine to a point too.

The best wines of the world often refer to terroir. Terroir is a French term that refers to all the climatic, geological and topographical influences on a specific piece of land. And it is true that neighbouring vineyards, grown identically, can taste noticeably different.

White Wine

It is interesting to know that you can make white wine from almost any grape. The colour comes from the skins, and if there is no contact, there is no colour. White wines tend to be delicate, perfumed, higher in acid and lower in alcohol. It seems for this and many other reasons, it is hard to make an incredibly impressive white wine. But those that have mastered the art are indeed some of the best winemakers in the world.

It is a falsehood to think that white wine does not age as well as red wine. But it is correct that white wine, as a rule, doesn’t age for as long.

The Wine Depository

I, Phil, have been running The Wine Depository since 2011. The Wine Depository exists to make sure you are drinking the good wines. You can browse and pick what is interesting to you. Or you can make contact with me. I’ll make sure you get what you want, to your palate, to your budget and to your door.