White Wine of the Year? Maybe White Wine of the Decade? 

In 18 years of business, I have never offered a Sancerre for $17.99. Ever. 

And I've never bought this much of any wine retailing for more than $14. Never.

How good is this? Well, my money has met my mouth...

Famille Thomas Les Creots Sancerre Blanc 2018

Regularly $29.99

Buy six or more pay $17.99 – save 40%

All Else Sale $19.89 – save 33% - Beats Best US Price Online

I’ve got a long-winded explanation about how this deal came to be… but I will spare you! If you want to know, you can read on after the order button.

Oh, and let’s just get this out of the way… you need a bottle of white wine for Thanksgiving… for appetizers, to drink while cooking, or for Aunt Marj, who only drinks white. This is your bottle. Okay?

The Thomas family has been making wine in Sancerre since 1670! Under 13th generation winemaker, Julien, the domaine practices biodynamics, putting the emphasis on the vineyard, and allowing each plot’s unique soil type to shine through. Here, the vines are rooted in limestone… yeah, who cares, right? So much else going on… so let’s get right to the wine.

This is delicious and pretty serious Sancerre for the $. The nose is classic Sancerre – delicate notes of white flowers and fresh cut grass lead quickly to brighter aromas of gooseberries and grapefruit. The palate is “rich and broad”, meaning it really coats your tongue and the flavors are not shy, loaded with grapefruit, tangerine zest and green apples. Flinty mineral notes are abundant throughout and add balance to the fruit.

The richness comes from three sources – the soil, the yields and batonnage on the lees. Soil we touched on… the yields are as low as 40 hectoliters / hectare. The appellation allows for as much as 60 hl/ha. The lower yields mean the vines focus more energy on ripening the grapes, resulting in more intense, complex flavors. Anyone who has grown tomatoes knows all about this! And “batonnage on the lees”? The lees are the spent yeast cells leftover from fermentation. Leaving them in contact with the wine for 6-8 months, as the Thomas family does, adds richness and a creamy mouthfeel. “Botonnage” is the stirring of the wine to allow the lees to come into more contact with the juice. Put it all together and you have a wonderfully rich Sancerre!


Or reply. The wine is available now in Chapel Hill. Friday, as ordered, in Hillsborough.
 

And here is some more on “The Deal”.

“Is this deal legit Todd? If so, how in the heck?”

Of course it is legit! C’mon… I can’t believe you would question me. I get it, though. So many retailers, of all industries, just slap a fake “frontline” price on a wine and then claim an extravagant discount. But we don’t roll that way. So how are we getting this deal?

The wine comes to us through MISA Imports and our friend Craig Baker. Many of you have heard the story. MISA have a different concept – they are able to work at much lower margins than the average importer as 90% of the orders are placed DI, meaning they don’t have to hold them in warehouse space and then ship to another state's distributor. That means some serious savings! Additionally, he gets his distributors to work on low margins as we agree to take the wines within a very short period of time. And in large drops. The result is an incredible savings off what a similar wine going through normal channels would cost.

As an aside… this is not a “Direct Import”… there is no such thing in NC. By law, the wines have to go through a distributor. Some wine retailers who shall remain Totally nameless use the phrase to trick you into thinking you are getting some sort of spectacular deal, when usually it means they are just the only retailer to have the wine… so they charge you more! “Direct Import” is a lie… plain and simple. If they were doing it, they would be breaking the law.

Anyway… back to the story. 

Okay… this is an alternate label for Domaine Thomas Sancerre Le Perrier. Alternate labels allow the winery to move large quantities of wine at a lower price without undermining their primary label’s market position. So, if you look online, you will see the Le Perrier bottling selling for around $29.99. Hence the “Regular” Price listed above. MISA’s model allows us to get it for less. Buying an entire pallet (56 cases) allowed us to strike an even better bargain. So you can look at the original label, or you might even find this label online and our price is the best. Period.