Francois Cotat Sancerre Les Culs de Beaujeu, Loire, France

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Francois Cotat elected to leave his 2010 Sancerre Les Culs de Beaujeu with 8 grams of residual sugar, as it had already reached 14.5% alcohol: the highest of his classic trio in this vintage. The effect is like a liqueur of Sancerre (an expression I may well have used on some previous occasion, but which can scarcely have been more apt than on this one). Take herbal elixir; add mirabelle and rowan eau de vies, candied citrus rind and almond extract. Yes, it’s heady stuff – in its high-toned aromatic intensity as well as its voluminous, faintly warm palate presence: but that fits this wine’s soothing, enveloping character and its long-lasting concentration of herb, nut, and pit fruit essences. Cotat Sancerre has never shied away from making singular, memorably “atypical” statements and this one is written in bold letters. I suspect it will be worth following for 15 years or more, which counts as “the usual” for an outsized, subtly sweet wine from this estate. Given Francois Cotat’s (and before that, his father’s and uncle’s) penchant for late picking and the promoting of textural richness in sweetly ripe Sancerre, 2010 seemed destined to prove an ideal match for this estate, which began harvesting at the end of the first week in October, but did not finish until nearly month’s end. In the event, the wines that resulted are so diverse – in part extreme, even by estate standards – that generalization is fatuous. Cotat’s 2011s are good for some surprises too, again for being so different from one another, but also in how little marked one of their number is by the ripe manifestations of citrus and pit fruits one practically takes for granted at this address. After the 2010 vintage, Francois Cotat with regret pulled out the considerable expanse of impossibly unproductive 65-year-old vines that his grandfather had planted and that had in recent years contributed around 30% by volume to the Grande Cote bottling. But that still leaves vines of around 45 years average, and on their first appearance without their 65 year old elders, that team turned in a memorable 2011 performance.A Peter Vezan Selection (various importers), Paris; fax 011 33 1 42 55 42 93