Domaine Claude Riffault Les Chasseignes 2024
Domaine Claude Riffault Les Chasseignes 2024
90 Vinous Media
Drinking Window 2028 - 2034
The 2024 Sancerre Les Chasseignes is fruit-driven, a little reductive and tight but it's in its youth. This offers racy lemon citrus, nectarine and subtle toasty notes from extended aging. It needs more time and is best left to age in bottle. Drink the 2025 first (when it's released). - By Rebecca Gibb MW, August 2026
Terroir 3: Caillottes (aka Portlandian Limestone)
Locations called “Les Chasseignes” are common in Sancerre. This local name designates caillottes soil: shallow limestone soil and subsoil containing overlapping stones. Stéphane’s lieu-dit of this name is located north of his home and cellars in the village of Sury-en-Vaux. Released in late spring along with Les Boucauds (terres blanches), Les Chasseignes shows the nervier style of wine typical from this distinct terroir.
Vinous Media, Rebecca Gibb MW, August 2026
A shining star of Sancerre, Claude Riffault produces suave, texturally intriguing, seemingly effortless wines. After joining the family business in 2001, Stéphane Riffault began implementing changes, starting with a move to hand-harvesting in 2008. In 2013, the family converted their 15 hectares to organic farming, achieving official certification in 2016. Biodynamic conversion started in 2018, and 2021 was the first fully biodynamic harvest. All the white wines (the estate also farms 2 hectares of Pinot Noir) are fermented and aged in large wood. Malolactic fermentation has always been blocked, but in 2023, the single-vineyard wines Les Chailloux and Les Chasseignes went through malo before alcoholic fermentation had finished. This gives them a softer, creamier note that I haven’t seen in previous vintages, but it obscures some of their unique terroir identity, particularly the flint-derived Les Chailloux. Riffault noted he had to pay careful attention to volatile acidity due to high populations of acetic acid and lactic bacteria. The blended cuvée, Mosaique Calcaire, was aged less in wood and more in tank in 2023, not only due to the logistics of a big and fast harvest, but to maintain freshness in this relatively low-acid vintage.
Due to the small size of the 2024 harvest — they lost 90% of the crop — the 2023 single-parcel cuvées could mature for longer, as the barrels weren’t needed for the new vintage, lending extra texture and harmony. Though other domaines had to blend their single parcels together to have sufficient juice, Riffault managed to make individual bottlings of the 2024s, though volumes are quite low. While Riffault’s wines generally tend to be about texture rather than aromatics, the 2024s show a cooler, greener edge to the variety. They are also more assertively structured with phenolic grip.
