{"product_id":"2024-paul-prieur-fils-la-pitaude-sancerre-loire-valley-france","title":"2024 Paul Prieur \u0026 Fils, La Pitaude, Sancerre, Loire Valley, France","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Prieur family has made wine in Sancerre for eleven generations from the top of the village of Verdigny, at the foot of the Monts Damnés. Luc Prieur trained in Beaune and came home to take over the domaine with the 2012 vintage, at twenty-two, with his father still beside him in the early years. His predecessors had always worked the soils and kept chemical intervention to a minimum, but Luc turned the domaine decisively: he dropped herbicides on arrival, moved to fermentation with indigenous yeasts, cut sulfur, aged the wines on their lees and filtered lightly or not at all. Organic certification arrived with the 2022 vintage, and he has since been experimenting with biodynamic preparations, cover crops and horse plowing, and he no longer trims the vines. The nineteen hectares hold fourteen of sauvignon blanc on the limestone soils of Verdigny and Chavignol, the caillottes and terres blanches, plus flint in Thauvenay along the Loire, and five of pinot noir at Les Pichons, a near-monopole below the Monts Damnés planted in the 1950s from massal selection. The wines are precise and unhurried, and Luc has become one of the reference growers of the new generation in Sancerre.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLa Pitaude is a lieu-dit in Verdigny on the Kimmeridgian marl the locals call terres blanches, the same clay-limestone that underlies the Monts Damnés. The vines here carry court-noué, the fanleaf virus, which stunts the crop into small, millerandé bunches with tiny berries. Yields are so low that Luc has considered pulling the parcel out more than once, and every year the wine talks him out of it. The 2024 was vinified without any added sulfur and aged fifteen months, eighty percent in 600-liter barrels and twenty percent in Wineglobes, then fined with bentonite and bottled without filtration. Because so little is made, Luc writes the cuvée name on each bottle by hand in gold pen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe 2024 season in the Loire was cold and wet, with relentless mildew pressure and one of the smallest Sancerre crops in memory. What survived at La Pitaude carries the concentration the parcel is known for, sharpened by the year. White grapefruit pith and quince open the wine, followed by crushed oyster shell, lemon thyme and a chalky, saline grip that runs the length of a long finish. A Sancerre built on texture and salt rather than aromatics.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Yes Society","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52263524696360,"sku":"AT24PPRIEURSANCERREPITAUDE750","price":150.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0779\/1794\/6152\/files\/PaulPrieur_Fils_LaPitaude_e4af71f0-3a60-446a-a5a3-831df21b3b20.jpg?v=1789067356","url":"https:\/\/yes-society.com\/products\/2024-paul-prieur-fils-la-pitaude-sancerre-loire-valley-france","provider":"Yes Society","version":"1.0","type":"link"}