In 1982, Didier Dagueneau returned to Saint-Andelain and refused to join the family domaine, setting out instead to make, as he put it, “the best Sauvignon Blanc in the world.” A former professional racer of both dog-sleds and motorcycle sidecars, he became the most divisive and most decorated figure in the Pouilly-Fumé appellation before his untimely 2008 death in an ultralight plane crash. His son Louis-Benjamin, then 26, took the reins alongside his sister Charlotte, and the wines have only sharpened. The domaine farms roughly 12 hectares in Pouilly across silex and clay, a parcel of Monts Damnés in Sancerre, and three hectares in Jurançon at the foot of the Pyrénées. Yields are kept at 75% of neighboring estates and vinified parcel-by-parcel; fermentations rely on indigenous yeasts; aging happens in cigar-shaped barrels and demi-muids designed for lees contact without aromatic distortion. Since 2017, in protest of an appellation rejection, the wines have been bottled as Vin de France.

The Babylone project started in 2002, when Didier discovered a natural amphitheater of terraced vines at Aubertin facing the Pyrénées and was reminded of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. The collaboration with Guy Pautrat produces petit manseng of unusual tension for Jurançon, harvested by successive passes and fermented in new oak — demi-muids and cigares — without chaptalization. The Demi-Sec was born in 2013, when fermentations stopped short of the residual sugar required for Moëlleux classification. Louis-Benjamin loved the result and decided to bottle it separately whenever the vintage delivers something similar.

The 2018 carries roughly 70 grams of residual sugar and you'd never guess from drinking it. Candied lemon peel, mandarin, white peach, beeswax, and dried apricot move through a palate held taut by saline acidity, the texture hovering rather than coating. The finish runs long on bitter orange pith and a faintly smoky mineral edge. Built for a decade or more of cellar time post-bottling.