The region's enfant terrible was Didier Dagueneau, a gifted and energetic producer of Pouilly-Fumé based in a modest cottage in St-Andelain just north of its grandest building, the Château du Nozet, home farm of the Upper Loire's best-known wine producer, Baron de Ladoucette. Serious restaurants in Sancerre, for example, list their local wines under the names of the appellation's best-favoured communes such as Bué, Ménétréol and Chavignol, where some of France's best crottins, or miniature drums of goat's cheese, are made. Only at the highest quality level is the particular nature of the various terrains in the appellations apparent. Mechanical harvesting has been the norm for some time and the combination of a damp climate and generous yields can result in almost aggressively aromatic, light-bodied, relatively tart wines reeking of nettles and cats' pee. Neatly hedged rows of Sauvignon vines traverse the gentle slopes above the river, where vineyards are interspersed with cereal crops and sunflowers for this is an area of mixed farming. Such has been demand for them in the world's restaurants that most of the wines made under either appellation are remarkably similar. Both of these much-exported wines are made exclusively from Sauvignon Blanc grapes into lean, green, sappy, aromatic palate-sharpeners. The two wine districts are separated only by the river, and the hilltop town of Sancerre is just 16 km (10 miles) north west of the decidedly unspectacular Pouilly-sur-Loire. Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé (occasionally called Blanc Fumé de Pouilly) are the Upper Loire's, indeed the Loire's, most famous ambassadors. The same name, Saumur or Anjou for example, may be applied to a range of wines that includes all three colours and a confusing range of grape variety possibilities and sweetness levels.įrance's longest, laziest river joins not only some of the most beautiful châteaux and what was once the playground of the French court and is now that of well-heeled Parisians, but also scores of wine districts which can, very roughly, be divided into three zones: the Sauvignon-dominated vineyards of the Upper Loire the Muscadet region at the mouth of the river (more than 480 km/300 miles downstream from Pouilly-sur-Loire and Sancerre) and the vast and varied vineyards in between, which produce some great sweet and some useful sparkling white wines as well as a host of still reds, whites and rosés from numerous grape varieties of which Chenin Blanc, Cabernet Franc, Gamay and Sauvignon Blanc are the most important. It may perhaps seem strange that the wine regions with easiest access to the best oak in France (the forests of the Nevers, Allier and Tronçais are all in the upper Loire) are not great users of it, but grapes have to be really quite ripe before their fermented juice can take the weight of an oak barrel.Īnother factor may be the relative complication of wine names and identities here. Most of the whites here are made to the recipe of trapping the fruit in the bottle as early as possible without exposing them to new wood although dry, barrel-fermented Chenin Blanc is a growing phenomenon. Long, hot summers have traditionally been the exception, so relatively few of the reds conform to the usual expectation of high density, alcohol, tannin and obvious oak ageing although climate change and better vineyard management are contributing to riper versions of Cabernet Franc. Perhaps it's because at this northerly limit of commercially viable viticulture the grapes have had to struggle to ripen, at least until global warming kicked in, so the wines' hallmark is relatively high acidity. Outside northern France, the Loire, with the exception of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, has tended to be overlooked by modern wine enthusiasts.
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