The Loire in pictures

db dived into the Loire’s Cabernet Franc country last week, uncovering troglodyte mansions, medieval castles and some provocative natural wine.

The trip started in Anjou, where the Armorican basin of schist collides with the Paris basin of chalk. Cabernet Franc tends to thrive on the latter where it suffers less from hydric stress, while the schist offers an ideal home for the region’s famous Chenin Blanc.

As ever in the world of wine though, expect to find exceptions to this rule; in fact it’s best just to sit back and enjoy the ride, as this girl outside Angers train station appears to be doing.

Not the place you’d usually expect to find vines, but in Saumur it makes perfect sense. A limestone cliff runs between here and Montsoreau, so producers such as Château du Hureau in Saumur-Champigny take full advantage of this striking geology to produce some age-worthy Cabernet Franc.

There’s also the occasional parcel of Chenin Blanc, which dominated the region two centuries ago and is sometimes known here as Pineau de la Loire. 

Château du Hureau also boasts some impressive 11^th century cellars carved into the rock, which provide a steady 11° temperature and constant humidity: ideal conditions for wine and, as this photo shows, cultivating some impressive mould.

Emerging back into daylight, it was time for a very civilised tasting and lunch at Domaine Filliatreau, also in Saumur-Champigny, where father and son duo Paul and Fredrik Filliatreau produce a Cabernet Franc dominated range.

The domaine’s 1989 vintage proved just how superbly these wines can age, although maybe the homemade eau-de-vie skewed everyone’s palate.

There was just time to drop by Domaine Filliatreau’s striking visitor centre, La Grande Vignolle. Part cave, part mansion, the site was built during the 16^th century by digging into the soft chalky cliff.

At this point we diverted from the banks of the Loire down its tributary, the Vienne, to visit the village of Cravant, which accounts for around 800ha of Chinon’s 2,200ha of vineyards.

Here Frédéric Sigonneau has been making wine organically since 2007, with a witty label warning for detractors of natural winemaking about his expression made without added sulphur. He didn’t confirm whether the old musket above his head was used to convert hardened disciples of “conventional” winemaking.

We then arrived in the pretty riverside town of Chinon itself, which is dominated by this castle, where Joan of Arc came to ask Charles VII for an army to fight the English at Orléans during the Hundred Years’ War.

The wine trade’s enthusiastic cohort of real tennis players may also be intrigued by this point of interest in the right hand photo. Unfortunately, despite the signpost, Chinon’s well-preserved medieval streets no longer feature a court.

Our final stop in Chinon was Domaine de la Noblaie, home to a pair of rather elegant, energetic Irish x English setters, who also appear on a range of wines called Le Chien Chien.

Rather more pertinently for our visit, Noblaie is also an important example of how producers can use the Loire’s in-depth, free vineyard mapping tool to gain a greater understanding of individual plots and react accordingly to improve quality.

Owner Jérôme Billard and InterLoire technical manager Etienne Goulet led db on a tour of its different soil types, which in this part of the world can vary considerably within just a few metres, to explain the value of this programme.

Our final visit involved a whirlwind tasting from the back of his car by the charismatic Xavier Amirault of Domaine Amirault and Le Clos des Quarterons in St Nicolas de Bourgeuil.

Located on the northern, or right bank of the Loire, this appellation’s vineyards lie mostly on alluvial terraces that tend to produce a slightly lighter expression of Cabernet Franc than its similarly named neighbour Bourgeuil. Such delicacy proves little hindrance to ageing, as Amirault’s Vieilles Vignes 1997 demonstrated in a deeply satisfying end to this Cabernet Franc tour.