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2018 Alexandre Bain, La Levée, Vin de France

  • White
  • Dry
  • Full Bodied
  • Sauvignon Blanc
Ready - at best
Tamlyn Currin
17.5/20
Product: 20188158015
2018 Alexandre Bain, La Levée, Vin de France

Description

This 2.5h plot is located closest to the winery and has a complex clay, loam and sand topsoil before the vines’ roots hit the limestone. The cuvee undergoes 42 months of ageing, the longest of all cuvees. The nose is very complex and deep with aromas of apricot, rhubarb, quince and baked apples with a touch of cinnamon.

The palate has an underlining salinity, giving the wine great freshness and an extra dimension to the fresh tropical fruits and floral notes. It is very expansive on the mid-palate with a great acid structure. This wine is very giving and has an impressive balance, encapsulating huge complexity.

Yoan Bernard, Fine Wine Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

Colour White
Sweetness Dry
Vintage 2018
Alcohol % 14.3
Maturity Ready - at best
Grape List Sauvignon Blanc
Body Full Bodied
Producer Alexandre Bain

Critics reviews

Tamlyn Currin 17.5/20
Much less nutty than the 2020 of this cuvée but no less intense. Really vibrant. The concentration of layers and flavours and excitement creates a nerve centre within every sip that radiates out. Apples, roasted sweet-gold squash, rich liquorice, beach pebbles and sea glass. Rounded and voluptuous and glossy and abundant but also shiny crisp. A pole-star wine. These Alexandre Bain wines outperform their prices. They are gorgeous. A complete mental reset of what Sauvignon Blanc could be.Drink 2024 - 2035Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com (November 2023)
Drink 2024 - 2035
Tamlyn Currin, JancisRobinson.com (Nov 2023)

About this wine

Sauvignon Blanc

An important white grape in Bordeaux and the Loire Valley that has now found fame in New Zealand and now Chile. It thrives on the gravelly soils of Bordeaux and is blended with Sémillon to produce fresh, dry, crisp  Bordeaux Blancs, as well as more prestigious Cru Classé White Graves. It is also blended with Sémillon, though in lower proportions, to produce the great sweet wines of Sauternes. It performs well in the Loire Valley and particularly on the well-drained chalky soils found in Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, where it produces bone dry, highly aromatic, racy wines, with grassy and sometimes smoky, gunflint-like nuances.
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Alexandre Bain

Located in Pouilly Fumé, Alexandre Bain does not make traditional Pouilly Fumé style Sauvignon Blanc but something much more unique and atypical to the appellation.
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