Cuvée Eugénie

Cuvée Eugénie is the domaine's ambitious bottling, carrying the name of the ancestor who, with Fernand Lebrun, built the estate up from 1861. The fruit comes exclusively from the argiles à silex - the flinty clays of Saint-Andelain - and, fittingly for a wine off fossil-flecked soils, the label wears an ammonite.

Where the estate Pouilly-Fumé stays in tank, Eugénie gets the long road: fermentation in temperature-controlled stainless steel, then around ten months on its lees in traditional 600-litre tonnes coopered from oak of the neighbouring Bourbonnais forests, after which the wine is held back and bottled late. This 2016 went into bottle only in July 2022, nearly six years after harvest. The result is a richer, rounder register of Fumé - mimosa, green asparagus, blackcurrant bud and passion fruit over the smoky mineral finish, with the lees and wood layering in a toasty, hazelnut edge.