Croisé is a crossing in the literal sense. Thibaud Boudignon of Savennières and Louis-Benjamin Dagueneau of Pouilly-Fumé, two of the Loire's most exacting white-wine growers, traded fruit between their flagship parcels: Boudignon's Clos de la Hutte in Savennières and Dagueneau's Silex in Pouilly-Fumé. Each then vinified the other's grapes in his own cellar, so the same fruit is marked by both.
The project reaches members as a pair of bottles. One is the sauvignon blanc of Dagueneau's Silex, the flint-and-clay site that made his family's name, read through Boudignon's Savennières hand. The other is the chenin blanc of Boudignon's Clos de la Hutte, the schist heart of his estate, taken up by Dagueneau. Both carry the name Croisé, and the point is the exchange: each grower's emblematic fruit, filtered through the other's instincts.
Both growers ferment on indigenous yeasts, work without additions, and age their wines long in wood, so the grammar is shared even where the sites and grapes are not. What the crossing tastes like is the reason to open it: how much of Savennières survives in a sauvignon, how much of Pouilly-Fumé speaks through a chenin. This is the first release of Croisé and only is available.