Didier Dagueneau, Pouilly Fume Silex, 2019

This is Dagueneau's Silex from 2019, the vintage where years of patient changes in the vineyards and cellar finally came together. The result is aromatic ripeness without high alcohol, and we'd put it among the most profound, iconic expressions of Pouilly-Fumé there is. Silex is French for flint, and flint is the soil this wine grows in. The grapes are estate-grown, dry-farmed and picked by hand, then fermented and aged in barrel, including large-format casks. The man behind it was Didier Dagueneau, a former motorcycle sidecar racer and champion dog-sled racer who became the Loire's enfant terrible, publicly criticising his neighbours and obsessing over every detail until he died in a plane crash in 2008. His son Louis-Benjamin now runs the domaine with the same audacity. As Silex always is when young, the 2019 is the most closed-up wine in the range right now, all structure and promise. Treat it like great white Burgundy and give it years in the cellar.