Le Petit Saint Vincent, “Les Poyeux”

Think of the greatest vineyards of any given region and their respective top producers—no matter your answer, it’s almost guaranteed to share a common thread with everyone else’s: The wine is bound to be expensive. For the Loire Valley, it’s “Les Poyeux,” an elite vineyard made famous by Clos Rougeard, whose current vintage fetches well over $300. The wine is incredible, certainly, but there’s something equally as thrilling about today’s version from Le Petit Saint Vincent. They use that same legendary source, craft a flawlessly traditional wine, and deliver their soulful micro-batch for multiples less.I really want to hammer home the usage of micro-batch here: Winemaker Dominique Joseph culls organically farmed, ancient-vine Cabernet Franc from a .85-hectare plot and ends up with just 300 or so cases per year. Only a mere fraction trickles into America. It’s such a hard bottle to come by that, up until last year, I hadn’t even tasted it! But the results, especially in today’s all-powe