It always starts the same way: a confident fingertip, a practiced pause, a name spoken with conviction. ‘I’ll have the Sancerre.’ No questions asked. No curiosity betrayed. Just a clean request that reads, unmistakably, as competence.
And in that moment, you’re rewarded—not necessarily with a good wine, but with the comfort of knowing you’ve ordered something safe. Something chilled, citrusy, and hard to mess up. There’s something about the word Sancerre itself that feels reassuring: French but friendly, elegant but easy to say. You pronounce it and the room nods along. Great job, you’ve passed the test.
But that comfort comes at a price. You’ve also been taxed—by the list markup, by the scarcity premium, and most of all by the quiet erosion of discernment that happens when a region becomes a brand. Once upon a time, Sancerre was the smart choice—a whisper of grass and citrus and chalky minerality, the insider’s Sauvignon Blanc. But, at this point, it’s more likely to be a symbol of basic taste than a drink worth having, especially at its vicious markup.
To all the well-meaning communications majors, corporate creatives, and couples in coordinated linens who’ve made this your go-to zippy summer white: I come in peace. This is not your fault. You want something reliable. You’re not trying to make a statement. You just want a glass of wine that behaves.
And to my fellow wine buyers, beverage directors, and sommeliers: I get it! You’re trying to give people what they want. You’re balancing taste with turnout, discovery with demand. Every restaurant walks this tightrope—between satisfying ambient demand and turning people on to emergent, undervalued, exciting new things. You go too far out, and people laugh at you. You stay too squarely in your lane, and people get bored. (I can recall a moment last summer when I was deejaying in the Hamptons, trying doggedly to get people excited about Yunè Pinku and Logic1000—neither of them exactly avant-garde—and one young woman came back to the booth exactly three times to say, with a kind of ‘I have to pee’ level of urgency, “do you have any Fred Again..?”)
What I’m trying to say is that Sancerre’s uncritical popularity has gotten out of hand. Restaurants stock it because people ask for it. People ask for it because it’s on every list. And round and round we go—until we’re all complicit in a feedback loop where no one’s drinking anything that tastes like much of anything.
I come to you today to challenge the supremacy of Sancerre because, in this regime, everyone loses. We have to kill Sancerre.
How we got here
Sancerre is a small appellation in the Central Vineyards of the Loire Valley, perched on hills of Kimmeridgian marl and limestone. It’s best known for Sauvignon Blanc—zippy, nervy, mineral. Sometimes flinty, sometimes rounder and more floral depending on the vintage, producer, and parcel. You might see the occasional super-light Pinot Noir from this region, but white wine is the main event.
At its best, Sancerre is all about precision and restraint. The good stuff moves through the classic Loire spectrum of aromatics—grass, citrus, green apple, a bit of white florality or tropical lift depending on ripeness—but always with that taut, mouthwatering line of stony acidity. Sancerre can be a beautifully articulate rendition of Sauvignon Blanc, one that speaks clearly of its place in the world.
Certain names still signal that kind of seriousness: Hippolyte Reverdy, whose wines are quietly complex and classically built. François and Pascal Cotat, who work tiny, steep parcels by hand and age their wines longer than anyone else in the region. Claude Riffault, who farms biodynamically and makes laser-cut Sancerres with both clarity and depth. These are producers that reward attention—and often, a bit of cellar time.
But these days, you’re not likely to see wines like that by the glass. Because Sancerre isn’t just a wine region anymore. It’s a brand. And a wildly overextended one at that.
When I started working in wine in 2010, only about 15% of Sancerre’s total production was exported. Today, it’s closer to 70%. That shift tracks with global demand—but it also means a massive increase in bottlings designed to scale: cold-fermented, stainless steel-aged, technically correct, and emotionally vacant.
There are about 2,800 hectares under vine in Sancerre—roughly 11 square miles, a little larger than Manhattan. And somehow the name is everywhere: On wine bar by-the-glass lists, on yachts, in hotel minibars, and even in this new crop of overdesigned Hamptons nightclubs, franchised by Miami-based hospitality groups. What used to be a rather niche terroir is now a globally dominant vibe, one that unfortunately relies on volumes of commodity-level white wine from extremely expensive land in the Loire Valley.
There was a time when ordering Sancerre meant you knew something—about soil, about texture, about a particular kind of French austerity. Cotat was a genuine flex. Reverdy meant you had taste, or at least that you’d read a Kermit Lynch book. Now, ordering a glass of Sancerre says nothing more than: I’d like a glass of white wine that makes me look like I know what I’m doing, but I don’t want to have to think about it. Oh, and I’d like it to be really expensive.
What You Should Order Instead
If what you’re actually craving is a crisp, citrusy, light-on-its-feet white wine, you have options—many of them more interesting, more expressive, and crucially, less likely to cost $25 a glass just because the name rings a bell.
Muscadet (Loire): Made from the grape Melon de Bourgogne. Silky, lemony, saline. Still wildly undervalued. Great with oysters and other shellfish. (For some reason, people are often turned off by the name because they think it’ll be sweet—something to do with Muscat, or Moscato? I don’t really know. But rest assured: it’s dry, and often one of the most delicious cheap wines you can find.)
Albariño (Rías Baixas, Spain): Juicy and aromatic, with breezy levity and a touch of bitterness that makes it very food-friendly.
Txakolina (Basque Country): Slightly fizzy, sharply acidic, low in alcohol, and basically begging to be drunk with fried fish.
Picpoul de Pinet (Languedoc): Literally means “lip-stinger.” No further comments.
Vermentino (Liguria, Sardinia): Herbal, mineral, and subtly complex. Drinks like a vacation you didn’t post about.
If Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc is still your comfort zone, I’d recommend acquainting yourself with some neighboring appellations whose names don’t roll quite so easily off the tongue: explore Menetou-Salon, Reuilly, and of course, Sancerre’s more restrained sibling, Pouilly-Fumé (full pronunciation guides available upon request).
One more suggestion: Marco Zani makes an excellent Sauvignon Blanc at Castel Noarna, in the hills of Rovereto, at the southern edge of Trentino-Alto Adige. This is northern Italy Sauvignon at its most quietly expressive—cool-climate, limestone-rich, and farmed organically with minimal intervention. The wine is alive but restrained. Don’t expect tropical fruit or grassy pyrazines. This Sauvignon leans stony and herbal—think mountain water, fennel, lime leaf, river rock. It refreshes without flattering. A good reminder that Sauvignon Blanc can still express place as much as personality.
What Do You Actually Like?
It should be clear by now that I’m not here to sour anyone on Sauvignon Blanc. If that’s your thing, go for it. This is just an invitation to notice what you’re drawn to.
Do you like wines that are citrusy, mineral, and clean? Great. That feeling is real. The mistake is thinking the name Sancerre guarantees it. It used to. But now it mostly guarantees a wine engineered to flatter the idea of Sancerre more than it expresses anything about appellation, vintage, or variety. It’s too expensive, too overexposed, too freighted with assumptions about taste and class and quality that no longer hold.
And the worst part is that it’s become harder to actually taste what’s in the glass. The name gets there first. It arrives ahead of the wine. It is the wine—or at least it drowns out whatever the wine might have said.
What we’re left with is a brand stripped of story. A wine that shows up in name before it shows up in the glass. You say “Sancerre,” and the experience is already over. The wine’s been flattened into a placeholder: elegant, French, safe. A gesture that suggests discernment without requiring any.
In a strange way, knowing nothing might bring you closer to something real than knowing “just enough.” Because the “just enough” attached to Sancerre has been hollowed out by repetition. It gives the illusion of getting it right without ever asking you to notice what’s in front of you.
If wine can carry any meaning at all, a glass of Sancerre—more often than not—is just an empty signifier. It short-circuits the possibility that you might feel something. That the wine might surprise you. Or disappoint you.
Or haunt you a little.
You are doing the lords work, thank you
Okay true but what about “fuck” and “marry”?