Head upriver from Sancerre, past the point where most wine maps give up, and you reach the Cote Roannaise, an obscure pocket of the upper Loire where the Serol family has been farming granite slopes for generations. Perdriziere is a single 1.5-hectare parcel named for the partridges that once filled it, planted at nearly 400 meters on decomposed granite stained red with iron. The grape is Gamay Saint-Romain, a local strain of Gamay that behaves differently here than it does in Beaujolais: darker, denser, more mineral. Stephane and Carine Serol farm it biodynamically at very high vine density, ferment with native yeasts and a chunk of whole clusters, and let the site do the talking. If you like Gamay but want it with more grip and gravity, this is the detour worth taking.