100% Sauvignon Blanc

Food pairings: Rich seafood and shellfish, oily fish, white meats, or aged cheeses.

Winemaking: The grapes are hand-harvested late, as is the Cotat custom, pressed as whole clusters, and fermented with indigenous yeasts in older demi-muids. The wine is then aged in older, large tonneaux and bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Vineyards and terroir: Les Monts Damnés is the steep, south-facing slope above Chavignol, on pure chalk subsoils (the terres blanches, the same Kimmeridgian vein found in Chablis) with thin clay and limestone topsoils. Pascal Cotat's few vines here sit at the top of the slope, where the soil is thinnest and the roots reach straight into the chalky mother rock.

Family and history: The Cotat family has tended vines on the slopes of the Monts Damnés since just after World War II; brothers Francis and Paul Cotat made their first vintage in 1947. When they retired, the family vineyards were divided in 1998 between their sons, Pascal (son of Francis) and his cousin François. Pascal bottled his first wines under his own name from the 1999 vintage. Today the domaine is led by his longtime vineyard manager Benoît Fleuriet and Benoît's son Aymeric, who makes the wines with Pascal's help.

In the pictures: Pascal Cotat behind a row of bottles; and the village of Chavignol with the steep slope of Les Monts Damnés rising behind it. The portrait is courtesy of North Berkeley Imports; the Chavignol photograph is by Cjp24, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.