The first time we encountered Thibaud Boudignon’s Savennières ‘Clos de la Hutte’, it clobbered us. We didn’t know anything about Boudignon or his wines, so we expected something typical of the appellation: a wine of opulent, confit fruit flavors, dry but unctuous, maybe even honeyed.

Instead, the wine — brilliant, explosive, and precisely focused— was like a salty lemon laser beam melting our faces. Amazing out of the gate, it continued to blossom sip by sip, showing the kind of depth and class of a first-rate Grosses Gewächs or Grand Cru Chablis.

In the span of one bottle, Boudignon blew our minds. How did he make this kind of Savennières? We didn’t really understand until we visited him at his winery in May 2022.

Located next to the winery, Clos de la Hutte is a true walled-in parcel that once belonged to an abbey. Boudignon makes several single-vineyard cuvées, but acknowledges that ‘Hutte’ has a special combination of power and elegance, which he attributes to the soils of sand of schist. There’s much less clay here than in more ‘typical’ Savennières terroirs, like Roche Aux Moines or Épiré.

But there’s more to it than just terroir; Boudignon, a former Judo champion, is meticulous to the point of being fanatical. During our visit, we watched him talk with a man who was installing a gate to one of his vineyards, spending considerable time discussing how the gate would swing and how it would close, in minute detail.

Thibaud planted Hutte in 2011 from very specific cuttings — including some from Domaine Huet — and now labors over the vines with bonsai garden-like obsession and biodynamic techniques.

This is one of our favorite wines, ever. We’re very excited to have enough wine to offer here today.

Thibaud Boudignon, Savennières ‘Clos de la Hutte’, 2021 $119.99