The 2019 Pouilly-Fuissé La Roche is the most youthfully reserved wine in the range, unwinding in the glass with scents of pear, peach, buttered toast and mandarin orange. Medium to full-bodied, satiny and enveloping, it's concentrated and precise, with lively acids and a penetrating finish. If Verget's Les Combes is more muscular, La Roche is more elegant and refined this year: it isn't easy to choose between them.
Fresh pure primrose. Lively classy nose with an abundance of fruit behind. This has a depth of pure white fruit structured with an excellent framework, and a superb pillow of classic white fruit behind with exactly the right oak to assist. Very well done. Tasted: 7/1/2020
The La Roche vineyard is located in Vergisson with a south-east exposure and with a shallow soil rich in limestone. It is certainly one of the most beautiful of Pouilly-Fuissé appellation. It produces obe of Verget's most mineral wines but it is also precise and rich. This wine is produced from only free run juice and was vinified entirely in barrels with 25% new oak. The fermentations ended in mid-December. The elevage continued for a further 8 months in barrels. Bright and pale in the glass. More reticent than the Combes VV at this stage, but revealing peaches and hints of pineapple with air, to go with a struck flint savoury edge. The palate is oily but restrained in fruit. White stone fruits come through with a hint of floral peach and lemon. A stony backbone holds everything together on a broad, sumptuous and long finish.
