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.

Pur Sang — "thoroughbred" — comes from the three-hectare La Folie vineyard, hidden between two small forests north of Saint-Andelain, planted on deep clay with a band of silica and south-southeast exposure. The cuvée was Didier's third single-parcel bottling, added in 1988 after En Chailloux and Silex, and it tends toward greater flesh and floral lift than its more austere siblings on the hilltop.

The 2022 is generous and muscular without losing its tension. White peach, yellow pear, orange blossom, ripe quince, and a thread of smoke fill the nose; the palate is unctuous and broadly textured, with the warmth of the vintage held in check by acidity and a saline mineral spine. A subtle vanilla note from oak aging sits behind the fruit. Could easily take 15 years of cellar time post-bottling.