Domaine Didier Dagueneau Buisson Renard 2023

Domaine Didier Dagueneau Buisson Renard 2023

Domaine Didier Dagueneau
$165.00

Grape: Sauvignon Blanc
Vintage: 2023
Type: White

There are few winemakers in history as bullish or brazen, roguish or renegade, as the Loire Valley’s Didier Dagueneau. High-standards, incredible risk-taking, impeccable attention to detail, zealous allegiance to his terroir, and a willingness to take a stand against convention made this once-professional motorcycle sidecar racer the stuff of legends. Born in the Nièvre, where Burgundy meets the Loire Valley, Didier was the fourth generation in a family of winegrowers. 

Buisson Renard is sourced from a cool, mid-slope terroir on the southwest side of the Saint-Andelain slope. The vineyard area is actually named Buisson Menard, as was the wine originally, but a wine writer mistakenly reviewed the wine as Buisson Renard. ‘Renard’ means fox in French and ‘buisson’ means bush, so the error gave the wine a name that sounded like ‘fox bush’ or ‘bush of the fox’.   This was barrel fermented and aged in Dagueneau’s bespoke, cigar-shaped barrels (450 and 600 litres) which are designed to increase lees contact. As always, this is a wonderfully layered and textured wine, perhaps with even more fat than normal, superbly contained thanks to the wine’s acidity and extract." 

Domaine Didier Dagueneau is the benchmark estate of Saint-Andelain in Pouilly-Fumé, where Didier Dagueneau set out in 1982 to prove that Sauvignon Blanc could carry the depth, precision and longevity of great Burgundy. Inspired by Edmond Vatan and Henri Jayer, he worked low-yielding parcels with exacting care and gave wines such as Silex, Pur Sang and Buisson Renard extended lees aging in distinctive oak vessels. After Didier's death in 2008, his children Louis-Benjamin and Charlotte continued the domaine. The wines remain intensely mineral, textured and ageworthy, transforming Pouilly-Fumé from a simple aromatic style into a profound expression of flint, clay and site.