It is a tale of an old forest and a 40-year-old vineyard. And it’s about a wine that is off most wine radar screens: the great and gastronomic Reuilly of the largely rural region of Berry in Central France. It’s in this wild corner of France that Denis Jamain likes to walk in his two-hundred year old oak forest, his sessile oak forest. Sessile oaks are a type of deciduous oak that are sought after for making wine casks. Denis Jamain walks through his trees looking for the ones that will make the best casks to age his Reuilly wines — whites, rosés and reds — in, turning them into the aromatic wonders that Reuilly is known for. In fact, some oaks of his forest have been selected to re-build the framework of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris. Jamain’s Reuilly Blanc les Chênes 2018, which literally means white Reuilly of the oaks, offers up a rich taste which is already apparent in its color, a golden gold. Its bouquet bequeathes the intense aromas of vanilla and quince to the atmosphere and finally the taste, one to savour with its rich aroma of fruit compote. It is the mature 40-year-old vine plants that are largely behind the complexity of this wine along with the characteristic limestone clay soil of the region that consistenly conveys a noble, dry earthy quality to the Reuilly wines, which evoke the finest of Sancerres with something a little different. Mr. Jamin’s estate is certified organic and since 2011 certified DEMETER, an international certification that guarantees that the products emanate from biodynamic agriculture. This white Reuilly is particularly good with fish or poultry in a thick cream sauce or the local pungent goat cheeses. https://www.denis-jamain.com/welcome.html

©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette