The Centre-Loire sub-region is located in the Loire Valley region, southeast of the Paris Basin. Its surface area is difficult to determine and the vineyards are made up of plots that vary in Size and are isolated, but also of plots of several hundred hectares. On a limestone base, the Centre-Loire has at least four types of soil: the terres blanches, Deep brown calcareous soils, which give the wines firmness, vivacity and fullness; the caillotes, Hard limestone soils, which give the wines pleasure, tenderness in their youth and a characteristic fruitiness; the grillotes, of friable limestone from which the wines take notes of candied fruits and honey; and the chailloux, siliceous with fine and coarse elements (clays, silts and sands, gravels, and pebbles), giving the wines firmness, persistent aromas, a Spicy nuance and a note of gunflint The caillotes and grillottes are shallow, stony soils, which Warm up quickly in the spring and have good rainwater Runoff, resulting in early ripening of the grapes for the production of fine, Soft, fruity wines. The semi-continental climate with microclimatic variations is ideal for the Sauvignon grape variety which gives white wines a rare harmony and perfection, and also ideal for the Pinot Noir which produces little known but no less surprising red wines.
The Centre-Loire region has nine appellations but is particularly well known for its AOC Sancerre, Quincy, Reuilly and Menetou-Salon. These appellations include those from the Auvergne vineyards (Saint-Pourçain, Côte-Roannaise and Côtes-du-Forez).
Although Cru Beaujolais has been having its moment in the sun for a few years now, its younger, lighter-bodied ‘nouveau’ cousin is coming back into its own. How Beaujolais Nouveau Day started The tradition of Beaujolais Nouveau dates back to the 1800s. Winemakers would bottle their just-fermented wine, produced from grapes harvested just a few months prior, an unusually tight timeframe in winemaking terms. This occasion called for a massive celebration among Beaujolais-based vigneron ...
The focus of the symposium, unsurprisingly, was on the challenges posed by climate change. As if to illustrate the immediacy of the threat, the symposium took place during a heatwave, with temperatures of over 40°C in Bordeaux and extreme weather events recorded across the coountry: parts of southwest France saw violent storms and winds of 112kph on the evening of 20 June, while vineyards across the Médoc and St-Emilion were damaged by hailstones ‘the size of golfballs’. As Olivier Bernard of D ...
Emmanuelle Verset is the sixth generation to make wine in her family, and represents the E in Domaine A&E Verset. The A is for Alain, her father. She took over from him in 2016 at the age of 24, and is one of the few female winemakers in Cornas. The Verset name runs deep in this part of the Rhône. You might have heard of Noël Verset (1919 – 2015), whose bottles are highly sought-after today – Noël was Alain’s uncle. Scroll down to see Matt Walls tasting notes and scores for six Domaine A& ...
