2019 Blanchet Pouilly-Fumé & Bûche Sainte-Maure
For this week’s pairing, we’re focusing our attention on an area in central France known as the Loire Valley. With its show-stopping fields of sunflowers, abundant vineyards and fruit orchards, along with châteaux abound, the Loire River Valley provides the perfect terrain and climate for some of France’s most cherished goat cheeses and white wines. Across the Loire River from Sancerre, another prominent French wine district, the Blanchet family has been making Pouilly-Fumé for generations, continually aiming towards a greater level of ingenuity and sustainability. Made with old-vine Sauvignon Blanc grapes, their wine delivers a citrus forward, smoky nose, and a mineral character born from the flinty soil native to the upper Loire. As we tasted this wine along side the pasteurized goat’s milk, Bûche Sainte-Maure, produced in the same region, we appreciated how this medium-body, dry wine stood its own against the cheese’s grassy bite, and supple, semi-sweet yogurty paste. A perfect pairing of place.