Wine Notes
Eastern Loire - Sancerre & Pouilly — 13/11/2007
Sancerre:
This pretty area in the eastern Loire has long been one of our favourites to visit.
The hill-town of Sancerre above the Loire dominates the area and has had an interesting history. It was a prosperous merchant town in a feudal society. (The money was based on wool not wine). It was a protestant stronghold in the wars of religion and was besieged twice by royal armies. It ardently supported the Revolution and Napoleon’s Marshal Macdonald, a Scottish settler, lived here.
The Wines
Sancerre. These white wines are made from Sauvignon Blanc and are dry, flinty and acidic, with varying degrees of lime, 'cat's pee' , gooseberry and herbacous nettle tones. Sancerres are often produced from single vineyards and single soil types. (An approach favoured by the appellation authorities).
Most Sancerres and Pouilly Fumés should be drunk in the first couple of years but the best can drink well for longer than this and after four or five years take on an interesting mellow and less raucous flavour.
Sancerre Rouge: This is 100% Pinot Noir and has improved dramatically over recent years. Twenty years ago there was probably only one good producer, these days, the average standard is pretty good and some bottlings, especially ‘Vielles Vignes’ cuvées, can be very serious. It is still worth watching the vintages though.
Sancerre Rosé: The classic Pinot rosé has an onion skin colour, piercing nose with raspberries. It drinks well young.
There are three soil types here in Sancerre:
Kimmerigian, which is largely on the steep escarpments of Chavignol, Verdigny and Bué such as Côte de Mont Damnée and Clos de la Chêne Marchand. These are interesting, complex Sancerres.
Silex (flint and clay soil), found largely around the town of Sancerre itself, gives deep profound wines.
White chalky soil called caillottes from the majority of the vineyard, the 'standard' Sancerre.
Pouilly-Fumé:
This is the other great Sauvignon from the Eastern Loire. The vineyards are scattered on the low hills behind the river-side town of Pouilly-sur-Loire. The scale of production is quite a bit smaller than Sancerre but the producers are on average rather larger and several of them are very high profile.
The wines and soils
On the whole the wines tends to be fuller and softer than Sancerre and is traditionally described as having a whiff of ‘flint-lock’ pistol on the nose. If you look for the smoky tone you may find it, but you may also find the gooseberry and nettle scents too.
The soils are basically the same as Sancerre, but the landscape is of gentler hills, without the great escarpments. Some special wines are made from Silex soils or Vielles Vignes and some of these are fermented in barrel rather than the modern temperature controlled vats which are generally used for Sauvignon in this corner of France.
Menetou-Salon: Lively mid-weight wines of Sauvignon blanc from hills just west of Sancerre. It can be very difficult to tell Menetou-Salon apart from Sancerre. There is also a little red & rosé from Pinot Noir.
Quincy and Reuilly. Two lesser known appellations further west. Soils are mostly sandy, the wines are gentler with a mineral rather than a cutting acidity.
Coteaux du Giennois. This small appellation (with growth potential if the authorities allow it) is largely on the other side of the Loire opposite Sancerre and stretching north (down-stream) to Gien. The main part of the vineyard is above Cosne-sur-Loire. Whites are from Sauvignon and the reds and rosés from Pinot Noir and Gamay. Quality may be improving.
Vin de Pays du Val de Loire (formerly Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France). This is catch-all Vin de Pays for the whole of the Loire Valley. Some of the larger growers and the local négociants use this to produce fairly large scale wines from Sauvignon Blanc. The style is sub-Sancerree, light, acidic and pretty.
The main grape variety
Sauvignon Blanc: The vine of Sancerre, Pouilly- Fumé, Menetou etc. Also Sauvignon de St Bris and AC Tourraine. It enjoys the limestone rich soils, moderate climate and gives intensely aromatic, zesty wines that are generally best young. Sauvignon Blanc is originally from Bordeaux where, generally blended with Semillon, it produces great sweet wines and dry wines that vary from superb to abysmal.
Other Varieties
The reds of the region are from Pinot Noir and there is a little Pinot Meurnier in the area too which goes into Vin de Pays Rosé. This is probably a survival from the days when the region supplied grapes illictly for Champagne. (For more on this, come on our Eastern Loire tour!) The boring Chasselas grape is found in Pouilly where small quantities of AC Pouiily-sur-Loire are made from it.
