The 2025 wines from Pascal Jolivet in Sancerre
Website: https://pascaljolivet.com/en/
These are the 2025 releases from leading Sancerre-based producer Pascal Jolivet. This was a good vintage, but not a simple one. Winter rainfall was good, but then it was dry and warm from the outset. Early budbreak was followed by the driest May and June in 15 years. Then there was a heatwave in August, and despite some rain on 20 August, sugar accumulation was rapid and it was a late August and early September vintage. The grapes were in perfect condition, but this was a year for rich, ripe wines that searched a bit for definition and typicity.
I really liked these wines, though. Jolivet have done a really good job, and while they aren’t the most typical examples of their place, they are delicious.
Pascal Jolivet Edition Sauvignon Blanc 2025 Coteaux de Giennois, Loire, France
12.5% alcohol. Jolivet have 20 hectares in this appellation, in Saint-Père, a special part. Limestone/flint soils. Delicate but full nose of apple, pear and citrus, with a hint of elderflower. The palate is quite full, concentrated and rounded with a slight saltiness to the bold fruit. Really weighty, despite the low alcohol, finishing fresh with a slight green hint. This is really textural. 93/100
Pascal Jolivet Blanc Fumé 2025 Loire, France
13.5% alcohol. This is bright and linear with nice fennel and herb notes as well as boldly textured pear and citrus fruit, with a hint of apple. This has great concentration with real refinement, showing rounded, textured fruit with some warmth and depth. There’s a crystalline, crushed rock minerality here. The serious mineral end of the wine is slightly masked by the rich fruit now, but it’s there. 93/100
Pascal Jolivet Sancerre 2025 Loire, France
13.5% alcohol. Beautiful aromatics with ripe pear and peach as well as some elderflower. The palate is beautifully nuanced, showing crystalline citrus fruit and some melon and pear richness, with very subtle green characters. There’s a grapefruit frill on the finish. This is really expressive and shows the riper side of Sancerre really well. Very fine. Lovely stuff. 94/100
Pascal Jolivet Sauvage Sancerre 2025 Loire, France
14% alcohol. This is a parcel selection from 2 hectares of limestone terroirs located in the villages of Champtin and Bué-en-Sancerre. Organic. Wild ferment then ageing on lees for 12 months in stainless steel. This is rich and textural with lovely depth to the saline-laced pear and melon fruit, with some crystalline citrus. Such a plump, rich, textural expression of Sancerre, with the limestone showing on the finish in terms of the acid line, but it’s almost hidden by the weight of rich fruit, a function of the vintage. Almost Cotat-like in style, this is rich, but should age effortlessly with that mineral extract. I’d love to see this again in a decade. 95/100
Pascal Jolivet Les Caillottes Sancerre 2025 Loire, France
13% alcohol. Organically farmed. This is fresh, detailed and quite delicious, with ripe pear and citrus fruit and a nicely textured mid-palate, finishing broad but with a finely spiced flourish. It’s a bit chalky, too. Very stylish with a lot of dimensions, and showing the richness of the year. 94/100
Pascal Jolivet Clos du Roy Sancerre 2025 Loire, France
15% alcohol. Jolivet have 0.79 hectares of this 18 hectare clos, which is in the village of Crézancy-en-Sancerre. Stainless steel. This is textured and rich with a lovely rounded mouthfeel, and salty minerality supporting the ripe pear and peach fruit. There’s some warmth and texture from the alcohol, but a lot of concentration, and I expect this should age well, even if it isn’t a typical Sancerre. Rich, layered and saline. 94/100
