Fanny Sabre: Beaune Clos de Renardes and others
fanny in her original cellar in beaune, she now makes wine in pommard.
Fanny Sabre is a winemaker and farmer based in Pommard, Burgundy. Her focus is on her 4.5 hectares of vineyards of pinot noir and chardonnay located in the villages of Pommard, Meursault, Volnay, Savigny-Les-Beaune, Aloxe-Corton and Beaune. We have been bringing her wines in through our Almost-Direct Imports program since 2012. You may even remember that she did a tasting at the shop several years ago when she was travelling to Oregon for the International Pinot Noir Celebration. Her wines get more exciting, more themselves, with each vintage. We have some new things from her for you, but first here is a bit about Fanny in case she is new to you.
fanny at the shop!
Fanny Sabre came into winemaking by chance. Fanny’s parents started the domaine in the 80s. Her father suddenly passed away in the year 2000 when she was only 16. Although she had grown up around wine, she wanted to practice law. After her father’s passing, Fanny decided to turn her career away from law and toward working in the winery and farming the vineyards. Her philosophy of wine-making grew out of tasting, learning and trial & error. She has an array of wonderful vineyard holdings and worked hard to improve the farming, her equipment, and winemaking details in the cellar after taking over the winery. As she's integrated more natural and organic methods, she's been thrilled with the results.
clos des renardes in barrel
She inherited her family’s domaine in the year 2000, but took over with her first solo vintage in 2006. During these first years, she was guided by winemaker Phillippe Pacalet. Philippe is an influential and scientifically-minded winemaker who is an advocate for native yeast fermentation and low sulfur use. Pacalet was formerly a winemaker at Prieuré Roch and student of Beaujolais’s Jules Chauvet and Marcel Lapierre. Fanny’s wines have been a pleasure to follow: the guidance of former generations mixes with her own natural curiosity and skill as a winemaker to create balanced wines of place-specificity.
Burgundy lovers will delight in the wines Fanny makes — each wine is a microcosm of a vineyard or a village because Fanny works with small parcels, which she believes are measured ideally in ouvrées rather than hectares (24 ouvrées to one hectare, one hectare being 2.47 acres). If, as Fanny is, you are farming wines at such a small scale, smaller pieces of land have greater meaning. Her farming is organic in all vineyards. She seeks health of the soil and biodiversity. She tries to (manually instead of with a mechanical tractor) plow only when necessary in order for the cover crop to grow. All vineyard tasks are done by hand with a small crew.
steep clos des renardes, red clay and limestone, just above 1er cru vineyard les aigrots in beaune
We are selling her Beaune Clos des Renardes for the first time with this offering. We received small quantities of both the red and white wines from the 2019 vintage. The Clos de Renardes (Renardes are foxes) sits on the edge of the forest in Beaune, a steep hill ending at a forest — perfect for the foxes to dart in and out of the woods. The vines are 2 hectares of chardonnay and pinot noir planted 40-50 years ago on clay-limestone soil. Like all of her vineyards, it is farmed organically and teeming with other plants at its edges.
Her winemaking is minimalistic and skilled. She ferments her wines with natural indigenous yeasts and does not filter or fine her wines, or use very much new oak. Fanny's wines have no additives except for a small amount of sulfur after malolactic fermentation and at bottling. Fanny also favors a partial use of modest "semi-carbonic" maceration in some of her wines allowing for more natural Pinot noir flavor. She believes in whole cluster fermentation (grapes and stems together at first—just like Jean-Francois Bourdy does from the 14th century methods in Jura!) which further enhance the wine's energy and vigor. Her vinification includes the old-time classic use of larger standing-up conic open-topped wooden vats which, in our travels, are almost never seen in Burgundy these days.
hand-harvested grapes!
Fanny does all the work in the cellar and in the vineyards. Each of her wines are from grapes harvested only by hand for maximum freshness and condition. Tasting through her line-up, you cannot help but notice how different each is from the next based on where the grapes are grown.
It is refreshing to find a series of wines like these as opposed to so many of the homogenized and seemingly over-extracted, high alcohol Pinot noir we see nowadays. Fans of producers like Chantereves and Lafarge will enjoy Fanny’s wines as they tend toward the textural and lightweight nymph-graceful tendency of whole cluster pinot noir. And for those wine lovers who enjoy Meursault, the saline and bewitching elixir of chardonnay, her Charmes premier cru wine is at the upper echelon of Meursault we have tasted. It has more personality and finess than most wines from this region that cost three or four times its price (low thanks to our almost-direct imports partnership). They are fresh, lean, fruity and sing with great energy and vitality. They are perfect for the table and/or thoughtful sipping, and benefit from time in your glass.
Nearly all of her wines are produced in quantities of 800-1200 bottles and the Parisians are downing most of them. Our expectation with a renewed import channel, is to sell the Sabre wines each year, with the knowledge we will only get one shot at her small production each year.
Click each wine for more detail.
Fanny Sabre Bourgogne Aligoté 2019
Aligoté is in legit renaissance - top bottlings from Burgundy are exemplary these days for a grape that’s been around there for a long time, but nearly forgotten. Fanny’s version from the 2018 harvest is genuine: mineral-fixated, the vines are ones her dad planted in Pommard, a zone never reserved for rare aligote. A “natural” wine from super terroir, dry, flinty and of gripping complexity. She believes this terroir in Pommard is on par with Aubert de Vilaine’s iconic Bouzeron aligoté and teases him that hers is much better! $29.00
Fanny Sabre Bourgogne Blanc 2019
Natural fermentation in stainless steel, the moved to old barrels, great ground and shot of lightening in a bottle from a stellar winemaker with a light touch. Makes for a nice comparison - try this Chardonnay from its source/homeland and one of the top offerings from right here in Oregon. From plots in Beaune fermented in steel and raised in neutral wood barrels. $34.00
Fanny Sabre Bourgogne Rouge 2018
A love-able, superb value (yes it is just a "Bourgogne Rouge") Pinot noir from several microparcels (each hand-harvested, fermented, and aged separately) around the Beaune appellation. Made with indigenous yeasts and in old barrels, Fanny's Bourgogne Rouge is a beautiful entrée to her finesseful winemaking style. Something we are seeing more - top producers using the "Bourgogne Rouge" appellation to house small holdings blended together when not enough land in each upper level terroir is enough to bottle singly. As most of her parcels are very small, The even better news - like this - is the combination of high quality vines at entry level prices! $34.00
Fanny Sabre Saint Romain Blanc 2018
Give Saint Romain some love! Just wedged between Meursault and Chassagne-Montrachet, this Côtes de Beaune village is a marvelous place for chardonnay. Fanny’s tiny holdings in Saint Romain are conveyed in this wine with accuracy and joy. Pastry cream and tajin- and pineapple-laced lime on the palate. This wine will be beautiful for many years, but rares to jump out of the bottle as soon as you make any dish with fresh fish (shell or river). $58.00
Fanny Sabre Clos des Renardes Beaune Blanc 2019
Fanny Sabre is a terrific guide through previously unknown zones of Burgundy, as her wines add nothing and take nothing away from what starts off in the grapes themselves. Clos des Renardes is above the Beaune vineyard les Aigrots. She loves this place, which is surrounded by forest and has lots of flowers including wild irises around it. The Clos des Renardes Blanc from Beaune, 100% Chardonnay, is about as clear of a picture of this place as you might ever get. These are 40-50 year old vines on clay-limestone soil. In the winery, the wine is lightly pressed in a pneumatic press and ages in 500L neutral oak which lends texture more than flavor to the wine itself. It is stirred once during its time in barrel. Of course, native yeasts, unfined and unfiltered — natural beauty! $55.00
Fanny Sabre Clos des Renardes Beaune Rouge 2018
A heart-moving red wine from Beaune -- this is Fanny's signature wine. The grapes here are grown by a treeline on a steep hill, a 2.5 hectare parcel on 40-50 year old pinot noir vines just above from 1er cru parcel Les Aigrots. Because of the red clay-limestone soil, the wine is broad and dazzling: an ample tray of red berry, with weightless weight and a cinnamon-sepia overlay. The mood here is a fox darting in and out of the woods and tannin darting in and out of amplitude. The grapes macerate with the juice with use of whole clusters for 5 days before fermentation in steel tank, then ageing in oak barrel. As with each Fanny Sabre wine, the wine is fermented with native yeasts on the skins of the vines, unfined, unfiltered. She adds a petit amount of sulfur after malolactic fermentation and at bottling. $59.00
Small quantities remain of:
Fanny Sabre Meursault 1er Cru Charmes 2018
Fanny Sabre Volnay 1er Cru “Mitans” 2017