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).
Malbec, a high-yielding red grape variety, produces tannic and colourful wines. It is produced in different wine-growing regions and changes its name according to the grape variety. Called Auxerrois in Cahors, Malbec in Bordeaux, it is also known as Côt. 6,000 hectares of the Malbec grape are grown in France (in decline since the 1950s). Malbec is also very successful in Argentina. The country has become the world's leading producer of Malbec and offers wines with great potential.
red wines from the region of Centre Loire go well with generally quite well with dishes of beef, pork or game (deer, venison) such as recipes of fresh sausage, pork roll with tomato sauce or duck breast with goat cheese and local ham.
On the nose in the region of Centre Loire often reveals types of flavors of smoke, chalk or dried fruit and sometimes also flavors of slate, green herbs or cigar. In the mouth in the region of Centre Loire is a powerful with a nice balance between acidity and tannins.
While taller overall vines do exist in regions such as Galicia with their pergola training method, the roots of any vine usually top out at 37cm. It’s at this top point where the Vitis vinifera shoot is grafted in and continues to grow, giving us such grapes as Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. This is opposed to the rootstocks which are composed of various crosses of vines such as Vitis rupestris which aren’t used for wine production but are resistant to the root louse, phylloxera. This new tal ...
Vanilla was ranked as the most pleasant smell in a study involving 235 people and conducted by an international network of researchers, including those from the University of Oxford and the Karolinska Institute in Sweden. This was closely followed by ethyl butyrate, ‘which smells like peaches’, said the researchers, who published their findings in the Current Biology journal. Vanilla notes can be found in several wine styles, such as some iterations of Chardonnay or Rioja, largely resulting from ...
Anecdotal evidence suggests that sales decreased significantly compared to the previous year, with volume and value sales down by as much as 60% in a few cases. In some instances, sales of usually bankable wines crashed to almost zero, according to the merchants that Liv-Ex polled. ‘Yet again, many buyers and collectors have had to ask what purpose the time-consuming event serves when it delivers such pitiful revenue, and who precisely it is for when it offers little compelling value,’ said Liv- ...
