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Loire Valley
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Muscadet, Anjou, Saumur and Touraine to Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, with four grapes and one verified producer.
All levels111 min16 stepsAbout Loire Valley
Part of France
Start with the valley: about 800 kilometres from the Atlantic near Nantes to Sancerre, four sub-regions, and its four lead grapes.
Begin in the Pays Nantais near Nantes with Muscadet, crisp saline whites shaped by sur lie aging.
Meet Muscadet's only grape, Melon de Bourgogne, a natural cross of Pinot and Gouais Blanc that settled in the Pays Nantais after the 1709 frost.
Next, Anjou: red, white, rosé and sparkling wines from 2,500 hectares, with Chenin Blanc running from bone dry to sweet.
Within Anjou-Saumur, Savennières makes dry Chenin Blanc, the only dry white appellation among Anjou's sweet wines.
Then Saumur, France's third-largest sparkling wine appellation, built on ancient tufa stone.
Into Touraine for Chinon, mostly dry red Cabernet Franc from 26 communes along the Vienne River.
Then Bourgueil, on the right bank of the Loire west of Tours, where Cabernet Franc grows on sandy-gravel flats and tuffeau hillsides.
Meet the red grape behind Chinon and Bourgueil, Cabernet Franc, a parent of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carménère.
Vouvray AOC: Chenin Blanc in All Styles
Back to whites in Vouvray, on the right bank in Touraine, where Chenin Blanc is made from dry sec to sweet moelleux, still and sparkling.
Step back to the grape itself: Chenin Blanc, high in acid, recorded in the Loire as early as 845 AD.
Now to the Central Loire and Sancerre, on the left bank, known for Sauvignon Blanc whites plus Pinot Noir reds and rosés.
Across the river on the right bank, Pouilly-Fumé makes only Sauvignon Blanc, with flint soils giving the gunflint note called pierre à fusil.
Sancerre AOC vs Pouilly-Fumé AOC
Set Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé side by side: climate, soils, styles, size and aging potential.
Then the grape behind both, Sauvignon Blanc, most likely from the Loire, with Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé as its reference points.
Now a producer: a Vouvray estate founded in 1928, farming 30 hectares of Chenin Blanc across Le Haut-Lieu, Le Mont and Clos du Bourg.
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