Silex is named after the type of rock that the vines are grown on and partly why this is one of the world’s greatest expressions of Sauvignon. The wine is complex with exotic and flinty flavours combined with oodles of grassy, mineral notes wrapped in a full-bodied, smooth and creamy texture; elegance and balance personified. If you’re lucky to ever get to taste a bottle you’ll see why this wine is hallowed by wine lovers and critics all around the world.
With one full time worker for each hectare of vineyard, yields 50-75% lower than those of his neighbours, and soils ploughed without machinery to avoid disturbing the root system, he never cut corners in order to achieve excellence. In the vineyard as in the cellar, where he worked scrupulously without sulphites, relying on natural fermentation only and using barrels made especially for him, with the level of toast defined by himself in close contact with the coopers.
Always adventurous and restless, he died, tragically and prematurely, when an ultralight plane he was travelling in crashed near Cognac. The wine world stopped, in shock, with tributes pouring in from all corners of the world. His obituary in The New York Times, written by Eric Asimov was particularly insightful and moving.