Grape: Sauvignon BlancVintage: 2020Type: White Pierre Menard grew up in a winemaking family in Anjou. He went on to study winemaking in Angers and to work stints in Pauillac at Chateau Latour, in the Duoro, Canada, New Zealand and in Tokaj, Hungary. When he returned home to Anjou, he began farming a few rows of his family’s old vine Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc. Traditionally his parents sold the grapes from all 13 hectares of their vines to a cooperative, but they agreed to let him keep some for his own project. In 2013, while still in his twenties, he bottled a miniscule number of bottles in a garage turned wine cellar. This inaugural vintage was received with great critical acclaim and a rising star of Anjou was born. Since then, Pierre has expanded his holdings to more than 1.5 hectares, all farmed biodynamically. He makes several bottlings of Chenin Blanc from these old vines, all dry. This Sauvignon Blanc comes from le Clos de la Roche in Faye d'Anjou, a small plot of old vines that were among the first Sauvignon Blanc vines planted in Anjou in the early 1960s plus the first clusters from a contiguous plot of younger vines. Le Clos de la Roche sits close to le Quart des Noelles and is unique in that the slope is entirely Schist, an extremely uncommon soil type for Sauvignon Blanc in the Loire and this vineyard is one of the last few remaining examples of it. Sauvignon Blanc grown on Schist does not exhibit typical Sauvignon characteristics and expresses more like Chenin Blanc. This single-vineyard wine from an atypical plot is named after another shot in the dark, the extraordinary, but terribly sad, story of Laika the dog who was the first living creature in space. Hand harvesting, gentle pneumatic pressing, fermentation, and aging in a combination of used barrels, sandstone amphora, and tank.
