Matthias & Emile Roblin, Sancerre (Maimbray)


Domaine Matthias & Emile Roblin_label

Country & RegionFrance, Loire Valley
Appellation(s)Sancerre
ProducerMatthias & Emile Roblin
Founded2000
Websitehttps://en.sancerre-roblin.com/

Matthias Roblin’s first commercial vintage was 2000 and of that debut the English magazine Decanter wrote: “Searing concentration of lime and elderflower fruit with refreshing acids. Long and even with a steely mineral character. Fine.” The magazine went on to select Matthias’ 2003 Sancerre as the best white table wine to come out of the Loire in 2005 (World Wine Awards, October, 2005). Given the torrid heat of that endless summer, one in which making a fresh wine was all but impossible, this was quite the honor. Decanter then profiled Matthias in its September 2006 issue, naming him among five new faces to watch in the Sancerre appellation.

Domaine Matthias & Emile Roblin Vineyards

In 2006 his younger brother Emile joined him (that’s Emile leading the way in the photo above), and now these two manage the affairs at Domaine Matthias & Emile Roblin with the aid of their father. Dad is officially retired, having made wine under the name of Château de Maimbray with his own brother most of his professional life until 2010, but he still lends a hand.

Domaine Matthias & Emile Roblin family

Matthias and Emile’s vines grow on the hillsides of Maimbray and Sury-en-Vaux in the northern sector of Sancerre. This zone is known for its terres blanches, a.k.a., Kimmeridgian Marls—white soils made of clay and marl and stones on top of Kimmeridgian limestone, and make for pointed, powerful wines that need a couple of years in bottle to show best (and indeed have the potential to age surprisingly well, but almost never are permitted to do so). The brothers have 16 hectares (nearly 40 acres) in Sauvignon Blanc and 3 (just over seven acres) in Pinot Noir. Production averages 12,750 cases.

For years now the brothers have been plowing profits back into the winery to update equipment and to create a winery in which their wine is now moved by gravity. They’ve also been steadily tweaking their methods of élevage, investing in wood uprights for fermentations and aging, along with 600-liter demi-muids, and extending the aging process. In the vineyards, they’ve been progressively moving to organic and biodynamic viticulture (burying horns, using dynamized sprays, and following the lunar cycle) to the point where in 2019 they went entirely organic. But they intentionally avoid certification and reserve the right to use synthetic fungicides in particularly wet years like 2021 with intense mildew pressure.

Instead of using clonal selections, they also replant vine-by-vine with sélection massale Sauvignon Blanc vines, all propagated from their oldest parcel of vines planted in 1947. All their corks now are made by Diam, guaranteeing that less than 1% of their wines will be corked.

In 2018, a season that ended with a beautiful but hot Indian summer, the boys started harvesting before most, and began doing so at 4 in the morning, ending at noon. In 2020, another hot year where a lot of growers either mistimed the harvest or waited not for maturity but for the rains, in the hopes of increasing the quantity of the yield (which may have increased yields, but resulted in hot and heavy Sancerres), the Roblins again started their harvest a week or two before most, beginning at 4am and ending, this time, at 11 each morning before the heat set in. They made a superb range of 2020s.

Domaine Matthias and Emile Roblin Les Ammonites

Here’s a shortened version of the Roblin estate (the full video is on their website and is well worth watching).

The Wines

WineBlendDescription
Sancerre Blanc Origine
Sauvignon blancThis, their classic bottling, stays on its lees until January or February after the harvest, and is bottled roundabout May after a light fining and filtration. Some 80+% of the vines for this wine grow in Kimmeridgian; the remainder in Portlandian limestone (which has less clay than Kimmeridgian but more than Oxfordian). The annual production averages 5,800 cases.
Sancerre Blanc Les AmmonitesSauvignon blancLes Ammonites is the brothers' top white wine, coming from their best parcels of Terres Blanches, where shellfish fossils such as ammonites are commonly found. Beginning in 2016, they went to aging this in 600-liter demi-muids. The regimen now is twelve months in older demi-muids followed by six months in steel.

The grapes are hand-harvested and normally ferment spontaneously without a yeast addition. No cold stabilization, no fining, no filtration. Production ranges from 400 to 800/12-packs.
Sancerre Rosé Origine
Pinot NoirThis comes from two parcels of qualitatively very good clones of Pinot Noir planted between 1999-2014. The wine is tank-fermented to preserve its brisk northern character; it's a rosé with excellent fruit in a long, lean profile. Production averages 400 cases.
Sancerre Rouge OriginePinot NoirIn the first decade of this century, growers in the Loire, led by Sancerrois, laid the groundwork for the creation of a 5-hectare experimental nursery vineyard called Le CepsSicavac, which subsequently took form in Côteaux du Giennois. The aim of Le CepsSicavac is to propagate the Valley's sélection massale vines that best resist the increasing disease pressure and vagarities of climate change, and since 2017 Sauvignon Blanc vines have been made available to growers from the nursery. In 2022, an agreement was reached with GEST for its vines to be propagated in the Le CepsSicavac vineyard. GEST is a Burgundian group of over 100 important estates likewise invested in identifying and propagating the Côte's best sélections massales vines. Beginning in 2025, Pinot Noir vines from GEST plant material will become available to growers.

The majority of the Pinot Noir for the Origine cuvée comes from sélection massale vines planted by the brothers' grandfather and father between 1961-1978. As vines are replaced, material from Burgundian nurseries is used, but the Roblins are part of the Le CepsSicavac group and they're excited about sourcing Pinot Noir from there once the GEST material becomes available. As you might imagine, it's a long-term commitment, one essential, the brothers believe, if they wish to be good stewards of the domaine and keep it viable for future generations.

About the Origine Pinot Noir, the grapes are hand-harvested and typically ferment spontaneously. In warm years, a percentage of whole clusters (one-third or more) are used. The wine is aged in a large oak upright, with any surplus aged in older demi-muids. Annual production averages 750 cases.


Sancerre Rouge Grande Côte de la ValléePinot NoirFrom the domaine's top site for Pinot Noir, all hand-harvested. At the moment, the grapes come from two adjacent parcels planted in 1999-2000 with what were the best clones available. They proved to be susceptible to the vine disease esca, however, and stricken vines have been systematically replaced with sélection massale vines from various Burgundian nurseries (pending availability from Le CepSicavac--see Origine description above). The two south-facing parcels equal 1.5 acres; the wine is made separately from Origine only in distinctively good years, with a maximum of 300/12-pk cases produced. There is a third parcel planted in 2014 just above these two which currently is used for the brothers' rosé.