A Guide to the Eastern Loire
by Tom Wolf
© Gail Skoff
© Gail Skoff
A Guide to the Eastern Loire
by Tom Wolf
As you travel east up the Loire River from France’s Atlantic coast, you pass some of the country’s great wine appellations: Muscadet, Savennières, Saumur, Chinon, and Vouvray, just to name a few. This stretch of the Loire Valley is the land of Melon de Bourgogne, Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc, and some of France’s most storied châteaux.
Shortly after you pass through Orléans, the river turns south and you soon arrive at Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire. This is the realm of Sauvignon Blanc, where pockets of outstanding, value-driven Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris also thrive. The châteaux are sparser and more modest and the banks of the river undulate more than they do in the relatively flat western Loire. The soils here are entirely distinct from those of the west. Rather than Touraine’s chalky tuffeau limestone, for example, much of Sancerre and Pouilly—and even Reuilly, an hour west—sit atop the same special Kimmeridgian soils that form the foundation of Chablis. This ancient marine limestone gives the whites a mesmerizing tension and minerality unique to Sauvignon Blanc from these parts. Many parcels are also littered with silex, or flint, which gives Sauvignon an impressive backbone and texture as well as a subtly smoky—“fumé”—note.
Pinot Noir from the eastern Loire, meanwhile, ranges from fresh and delicious bistro quaffers—see Domaine de Reuilly’s Pinot Noir—to complex and terroir-focused monopole cuvées such as Chotard’s Champs d’Alligny from vines planted by Simon Chotard’s great-uncle and grandfather in 1960s.
Finally, Domaine de Reuilly’s Pinot Gris offers as distinctive a take on rosé as you’ll taste. Silky and floral, it blurs the line between blanc and rosé so expertly you can’t help but keep going back to your glass to ponder it again and again!
For a long time, this slice of the Loire Valley was prized for its delightful and versatile wines, and while they remain as charming as ever, today they also deliver more and more on the potential Jacqueline Friedrich described in her 1996 book A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire. “When you stand atop the vertiginous slopes of Monts Damnés or look across the sea of vines in Les Loges, you sense that with a bit more commitment on the part of the vigneron, these wines could be mind-blowing.” Mind-blowing may be rare and subjective, but beautiful? Refreshing? Complex? Satisfying? Terroir-driven? The bottles below deliver these in spades.
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