In the early 20th century, the Crochet family was one of the first to bottle Sancerre for commercial sale in Paris. In the 1980s, Lucien Crochet’s Sancerre was one of the first of the region’s wines to break into the Bordeaux- and Burgundy-dominated New York wine market. To this day, the family’s Sancerre Blanc is a globally recognized benchmark. You can find the white Sancerre cuvées “La Chêne Marchand” and “Croix du Roy” on the best wine lists across the globe, and retailing as one of the region’s top “luxury” bottlings.
The 2021 "Croix du Roy" opens the show with textbook bright lime and green apple acidity, honeysuckle and green apple on the nose, then a refreshingly thirst-quenching finish. Still, the story quickly becomes more complex with exotic secondary notes of apple blossom, chrysanthemum tea, grapefruit pith, and a fine filigree of toasted bread and raw honey. We often think of Lucien Crochet as taking a ‘Burgundian’ approach to Sancerre and this wine’s elegance and complexity is a perfect illustration of that idea. This is a refined, “grown up” Sancerre. If enjoying in the next 2-3 years, decant for one hour and serve at 55 degrees in large Burgundy stems. This is squeaky-clean wine, and the perfect companion to a healthful dish like Salmon Poke. Crochet has a long track record of producing Sancerre whites that evolve gorgeously for decades,
