89 David Schildknecht - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

"The 2011 Sancerre Le Grand Fricambault Silex - from a site between Sancerre and Menetreol (and bordering his Le Manoir) whose flinty soil is now advertised on Neveu's label - delivers a pungent nose and palate of cassis leaf, nettle, and lime rind, but not in any under-ripe sense. A juicy lime and grapefruit matrix - along with suggestion of tart-edged cassis berries - serves for more than enough succulent satisfaction and refreshment. This very forward bottling will, I suspect, be best enjoyed over the next 18-24 months."

"After having sold and savored his wines for years - and more recently written about them - I finally visited the affable Andre Neveu. Like so many Sancerre growers, he exports more than half of his 33 acres' production (above all to the U.S. and U.K.), and a couple of his 2010s were gone without remainder from the winery when I visited in April, only one of which I managed to acquire stateside. Harvest here is split between man and machine, based principally on the steepness of gradient. With the exception of Neveu's small amount of Mont Damnes - and in short vintages like 2010, also his Longues Fins - the wines are bottled several times, whereby I tasted January bottlings of the 2011s and the last (i.e. late summer) bottlings of the 2010s. Close to 8 acres of this estate are devoted to Pinot Noir, but based on the reds I tasted from his three most recent vintages, Neveu is wise to render a significant portion of that as rose. (A brief reminder of the location and character of each of Neveu's sites is included in my tasting note on the relevant 2011.)"