LOIRE WINE PRODUCERS
From Savennières legends to Sancerre pioneers. 30+ producers defining the Loire Valley today.
Whether you're exploring the wines of France for the first time or deepening an existing passion, the Loire Valley offers unmatched diversity: from the mineral tension of Chenin Blanc to the elegant restraint of Cabernet Franc.
ANJOU-SAVENNIÈRES
Thibaud Boudignon
La Possonnière | Savennières | Organic with Biodynamic Elements
Thibaud Boudignon produces some of the Loire's most precisely delineated Chenin Blanc, having dedicated years to researching historical texts to uncover forgotten quality designations within Savennières. His scholarly determination led him to revitalise Clos de la Hutte, an ancient vineyard he resolved to replant through massale selection.
Bordelais by birth, his viticultural education included formative time with Gevrey-Chambertin's Philippe Charlopin before arriving in Savennières, where he managed winemaking at Château Soucherie whilst seeking parcels of his own. His inaugural vintage appeared in 2009.
Today, Boudignon stewards approximately 7 hectares, incorporating mature massale vines alongside replantings from heritage Chenin Blanc selections he believes contribute markedly distinctive profiles. Viticulture adheres to organic principles with biodynamic elements. In his purpose-built cellar, juice settles in subterranean tanks before indigenous fermentation, followed by maturation in oak vessels, often 500-litre casks. Malolactic conversion consistently fails to initiate naturally in his wines, a phenomenon he maintains simply doesn't occur with his material.
The wines
Anjou Blanc, from schist and rhyolite in Saint-Lambert-du-Lattay, encapsulates Boudignon's approach: subtle reductive notes complement bracingly taut acidity counterbalanced by concentrated fruit and distinctive papaya-seed astringency. Les Fougerais, a Savennières from sand-influenced terroir, exhibits the appellation's characteristic mint-stem qualities alongside peach nectar breadth. À Françoise, whilst classified as Anjou Blanc, represents qualitative advancement: textural crispness with enhanced mid-palate substance and deliberate phenolic structure accentuating beneficial bitter complexity.
Savennières Clos de la Hutte stands as flagship: herb-infused ripe quince achieving equilibrium with pronounced saline minerality. Since 2018, two additional parcels have entered production: Savennières Clos de Frémine, adjacent to Clos de la Hutte on sandstone yielding more restrained wines, and Savennières La Vigne Cendrée, a diminutive 0.5-hectare plot of granite and dark schist.
A textbook Rosé de Loire from Cabernet Franc and Grolleau offers mouthwatering reminder of pink Anjou's potential when approached with similar rigour.
Terre de l'Élu
Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné | Anjou | Certified Biodynamic
This established property, also recognised as Clos de l'Élu, maintains a decidedly experimental focus on dry Chenin Blanc expressions despite sitting in the heartland of Chaume, territory traditionally celebrated for botrytis-affected sweet wines. Thomas Carsin and his wife Charlotte took stewardship in 2008, bringing an international perspective from Thomas's formative Sonoma County years.
Their comprehensive commitment to biodynamic viticulture underpins wines that present substantial weight and structure, typically requiring patience.
The whites
Bastingage is barrel-matured Chenin Blanc characterised by pronounced chalky mineral textures. Ephata, amphora-aged, delivers nuanced white tea aromatics and remarkably ripe Bosc pear flavours counterpointed by formidable acidity. Désirade, from mature Sauvignon Blanc vines, offers distinctive muskmelon and aloe. Terre! combines Sauvignon Blanc with modest Grolleau Gris for a fleshy, fig-dominated profile. Le Baiser d'Alexandrie presents a robust, textural vin gris from Grolleau Gris.
The reds
L'Aiglerie features Cabernet Franc with extended whole-cluster maceration accentuating geranium-like aromatics. Magellan delivers concentrated ripeness from octogenarian Cabernet Franc. L'Espérance showcases wonderfully dense whole-cluster Pineau d'Aunis. Maupiti offers plush drinkability through Cabernet Franc, Gamay, and Grolleau vinified through gentle infusion.
Richard Leroy
Bellevigne-en-Layon | Anjou | Organic Principles
Richard Leroy stands as a genuine hero within France's viticultural landscape, a former banker whose transition to winemaking became the subject of acclaimed graphic novel Les Ignorants. His wines showcase dry Chenin's brilliantly sinewed texture from terroir historically destined for sweet wine production, rapidly achieving iconic status.
Leroy acquired land in 1996 on slopes overlooking the Layon river, a region once celebrated for sweet wines but largely overlooked by then. During his Parisian banking career, he developed extraordinarily broad tasting experience, sampling everything from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti to Pétrus. Yet he found himself particularly drawn to sweet wines from Chenin Blanc. His deep understanding of regional history informed his conviction that the Layon Valley represented France's premier terroir for botrytis.
Ironically, Leroy initially relocated specifically to produce sweet wines, having never encountered a dry Chenin that impressed him. With assistance from local grower Joël Ménard, he secured two parcels suitable for organic cultivation: Les Noëls de Montbenault, comprising 2 hectares of fifty-year-old vines on rhyolite and spilite; and Clos des Rouliers, a 0.7-hectare plot on sand and shale with younger vines from replanting using original gobelet-trained stock.
Local birds shared his appreciation for Chenin, necessitating earlier harvests before botrytis could develop. In 2001, Leroy produced both dry and sweet wines before subsequently focusing exclusively on dry expressions. This shift prompted questioning about sulphur additions traditionally required for sweet wine, leading to experiments that established his reputation within natural wine circles.
The approach
Acknowledging his terroir's propensity for powerful wines, Leroy employs deliberately unhurried techniques. Bunches undergo gentle pressing followed by complete juice oxidation, a step he considers fundamentally important, before indigenous fermentation in barrels. Maturation occurs predominantly in neutral oak for twelve months, followed by six months in steel, reminiscent of Roulot's Burgundy approach. From 2014, he returned to occasional minimal sulphur when necessary, typically in "homoeopathic" doses.
Most distinctively, Leroy maintains passionate commitment to lees management for wine protection during maturation. His technique preserves approximately half a barrel of lees from previous vintage to incorporate into new wines, citing historical precedent for wine's self-protective qualities.
Since 2008, his bottles prominently feature the designation "chenin" as varietal statement, classified simply as Vin de France.
The wines
Les Noëls de Montbenault consistently presents as more powerful and complete: slate-like softness alongside sinewed grey-salt mineral intensity, never veering toward excess, with Chenin fruit remaining remarkably fresh. Les Rouliers offers greater angularity with pronounced fresh mint and green pear, exceptional tension and concentration, perfectly calibrated acidity, and savoury complexity reminiscent of preserved pear and white tea.
SAUMUR
Thierry Germain / Domaine des Roches Neuves
Varrains | Saumur-Champigny | Certified Biodynamic
Thierry Germain has methodically constructed one of Saumur's more substantial estates, demonstrating the appellation's remarkable versatility across both red and white wines. His 28 hectares, all biodynamically cultivated, produce wines of distinctive character and impressive longevity.
Originally from Bordeaux, Germain migrated northward during the 1990s, falling under the formative influence of Charly Foucault at legendary Clos Rougeard.
The reds
Estate Saumur-Champigny remains a recognisable regional touchstone: delicate floral aromatics with distinctive cool celery notes. Terres Chaudes presents more structured profile from mature Les Poyeux vines on tuffeau limestone. Franc de Pied derives from youthful ungrafted vines. Les Mémoires emerges profoundly concentrated from a diminutive 1904 parcel.
The whites
L'Insolite stands as particular highlight: nonagenarian Chenin Blanc from Les Cerpes and Saint Vincent, matured in Austrian Stockinger casks renowned for minimal oak influence. Terres represents significant departure: Chenin subjected to eight months' skin maceration in amphorae.
Sparkling
Bulles de Roche is strikingly austere, lemon-accented traditional method based primarily on Chenin (with Chardonnay and Cabernet Franc). This bone-dry, zero-dosage cuvée represents collaboration between Germain and vineyard manager Michel Chevré, who simultaneously operates Clos de l'Ecotard.
Domaine Guiberteau
Saint-Just-sur-Dive | Saumur | Certified Organic
Romain Guiberteau's hedonistic but determinate winemaking style has earned him reputation as the Clos Rougeard for a new generation. His winemaking can be flashy but superb, with often the less-heralded cuvées showing more transparent marks of terroir.
The domaine has far longer history, dating to the turn of the twentieth century. Robert Guiberteau, Romain's grandfather, expanded it in 1954 by buying prime Brézé land. The land was leased out from 1976 when Romain's father retired without interested heirs. Twenty years later: Romain decided to take back the land, got tutelage from Clos Rougeard's Nady Foucault, began converting to organics, and the modern Guiberteau was born.
Today the domaine has nearly 15 hectares, mostly in Brézé, enough for numerous single-parcel bottlings. Romain still follows his grandfather's rule: topsoil deeper than 1.5 metres is for Chenin, shallower for Cabernet Franc.
Everything ferments indigenously.
The whites
Saumur Blanc comes from numerous parcels including old vines low on Brézé hill; aged in steel, always bold in its white-mineral and chervil aspects. Les Moulins steps up that profile, adding Montreuil-Bellay and Bizay parcels, all tank-aged.
Clos de Guichaux is Guiberteau's most underrated white, from a Bizay monopole on relatively soft limestone; aged in old wood, it's always tension-filled upfront leading to full, glossy, Chassagne-like fruit. Brézé is the crowd-pleaser from 1933 and 1952 vines on the hill; it receives most new oak and shows softness almost to excess.
The reds
Saumur Rouge combines young and old vines, aged in steel and wood, sometimes closed young but showing violet and chiles balance with agile fresh fruit. Les Motelles from 1955 vines on sandy Montreuil parcel is heady with black tea and bright mineral. Les Chapaudaises from 1948 vines in Bizay ages in tronconic wood vats. Les Arboises, a Brézé monopole from the 1950s, receives heaviest new wood.
Emmanuel Haget
Vaudelnay | Saumur | Organic with Biodynamic Elements
Emmanuel Haget represents an additional piece of Philippe Gourdon's reference vines legacy in Le Puy-Notre-Dame. A former geophysicist, he settled in the area after apprenticing at Les Noades in Doué-en-Anjou, positioning him to take over 3.8 hectares of Gourdon's biodynamically farmed vineyards in late 2016.
The wines show Le Puy terroir promise, though earlier on the curve in terms of finesse.
The wines
Préambule Rosé, a pét-nat of Cabernet Franc and Pineau d'Aunis, is surprisingly fine-grained in texture. Clos Messemé red highlights the same loam-and-chalk terroir as Mélaric's version with silken character. Anitya is Chenin grown on flinty soils. Palabres is Pineau from Clos Saint Jacques.
Domaine Mélaric
Doué-la-Fontaine | Saumur | Certified Organic with Biodynamic Principles
Mélanie Hunin and Aymeric Hillaire specifically sought limestone for Cabernet Franc when creating this young property, finding vines in Le Puy-Notre-Dame in 2008. They also planted Grolleau as a show of faith in that variety, and got a boost from local stalwart Philippe Gourdon, acquiring one of his 4-hectare parcels at retirement.
Mélanie, a Paris native, and Aymeric, from Doué-la-Fontaine, studied together in Montpellier before returning. The wines demonstrate that Saumur's bracing, textural side extends to its farther corners.
Chenin-based whites go into an old Vaslin press incorporating plenty of oxygen, always ageing in wood for at least a year. Reds tend toward infusion with up to two years' barrel ageing.
The whites
Billes de Roche comes from a hilltop parcel: frothy and full of bright mineral and citrus oil. Les Fontenelles from a former Gourdon parcel of flint and hard Jurassic limestone is intensely mineral with languid pear-drop stickiness. Clos de la Cerisaie, their top bottling from two fifty-year-old parcels, is defined by the precision the best Saumur offers: olive brine, ripe citrus, green pear.
The reds
Billes de Roche from hilltop Franc sometimes comes across raw but with deep juniper spice and subtle fruit. Clos de la Cerisaie from fifty-year-old vines on chalk has floral side, perfect finesse, and lifted tannins, always needing a couple years in bottle. Le Tandem mixes carbonic Grolleau and Franc for smoke and generosity. Le Clos Rousseau, Grolleau from young vines, has warm stemmy presence. Globules Roses (Pink Blood Cells) is a wound-up rosé pét-nat from Franc.
La Porte Saint-Jean
Montreuil-Bellay | Saumur | Certified Organic
Sylvain Dittière may be Loire native but, without family property (his parents were horticulturists), he bootstrapped his way into winemaking, apprenticing with Gérard Gauby in Roussillon and Antoine Foucault at Clos Rougeard. Starting in 2010, he and partner Pauline Foucault (Antoine's sister) assembled impressive vineyards beginning with 2.5 hectares in Saumur-Champigny.
His Montreuil-Bellay location provides access to both classic Saumur core and outer edges, making La Porte Saint-Jean one of the Saumurois' most exciting new arrivals.
Cellar work is minimal with just sulphur at bottling.
The wines
Les Six Rosés is pink pétillant from Cabernet Franc, Chenin, and Sauvignon, the last adding savoury green-watermelon-rind note. La Perlée, the key white, is old-vine Chenin from what would otherwise be Anjou Blanc; built around dark mineral tones. Le Saut Mignon is plush barrel-aged Sauvignon in what would be Saumur if permitted in the appellation.
Reds include straight Saumur-Champigny grown on clay and limestone: meaty, leaning to smoke and talc. Les Cormiers is a single-parcel Saumur.
Antoine Sanzay
Varrains | Saumur-Champigny | Certified Organic
Antoine Sanzay makes some of Saumur's most quietly ambitious wines from well-known parcels including Les Poyeux, where he has nearly 4 hectares. His sedate cellar sits a few hundred metres from Thierry Germain.
Sanzay's grandparents' land, now totalling over 11 hectares, is all farmed organically. His father died when Antoine was a child, but he didn't take over until 1999, launching his own label three years later and not fully exiting the co-op until 2013.
His practices include subtle tronconic wood for fermentation, concrete eggs and cement for ageing, and infusion layering whole clusters with destemmed fruit in mille-feuille pattern for just a scintilla of carbonic. But he's cognisant not to take it too far: "Otherwise the notion of terroir gets lost, that sense of minerality, of a sense of place."
The wines
Saumur-Champigny (now La Paterne) ages in concrete showing roasted chile spice with broad mineral purity. La Haye Dampierre from northeast-facing sand over tuffeau, also concrete-aged, is silken with warmer cassia spice and tangy red fruit.
Les Poyeux could show solidarity with Clos Rougeard (he's often aged it in their used barrels), but the style is totally different: dark, flinty, sumptuous, with plush black fruit, black mustard, and cool clay-like minerality.
An extraordinary white Saumur exists too. Les Salles Martin from Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg ferments and ages in larger wood: smoky, full, with ripe quince and yellow-mustard-seed spice, culminating in a mineral thwack.
Château Yvonne
Parnay | Saumur-Champigny | Certified Biodynamic
Château Yvonne exudes local history, sitting on the plateau above Saumur on Rue Antoine Cristal (named for the nineteenth-century Saumur viticulture hero). The property has hosted vines since the Middle Ages.
Long abandoned, it was revived in the late 1990s by Françoise Foucault, wife of Clos Rougeard's Charly Foucault, and converted to organics before Mathieu Vallée, from a Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil winemaking family, expanded it to 11 hectares across four villages.
There is something Southern Gothic about the property with its subterranean, glass-covered courtyard and fireplace draped with hanging ivy like a conservatory falling into earth. But farming is biodynamic and tidy, winemaking pristine: typically barrel-aged, bone-dry, sometimes with malolactic "as naturally as possible but to also maintain a certain rectitude."
The wines
Saumur Blanc comes from several plots of varying ages and soils: always white-peach ripeness and poppyseed spice but sneakily firm, linear mineral presence. Le Gory is Chenin from 1999 planting on rocky flint and sandstone: more caraway-spiced and juicy.
Reds compose the majority. Saumur-Champigny La Folie mixes parcels including hard Champigny limestone: pure smoky Cabernet Franc with pulped cherries and black tea. L'Île Quatre Sous from sandy parcel with some carbonic offers more silken texture with liquorice and chamomile. Le Beaumeray from single-parcel mix of young and senior vines (some upward of eighty years) is knotted in tannin but full of mineral brightness and fresh raspberry.
CHINON
Domaine Bernard Baudry
Cravant-les-Côteaux | Chinon | Certified Organic
Bernard Baudry set himself apart when the Chinon appellation was mostly about filling Paris café cellars with sturdy, simple wine. His fixation on quality began when he started his domaine in 1975, fresh from Beaune winemaking studies. Today son Matthieu largely runs things, improving on already impeccable winemaking and diligent organic farming across 25 hectares in Cravant-les-Côteaux.
Parsing Baudry wines means understanding that in Chinon, as elsewhere, slope and soil composition define key differences. "Many vines in Chinon are in the valley, essentially on old riverbed," Matthieu explains. The Baudrys have that too, in low parcels like Les Granges, just far enough from the Vienne banks to be interesting.
Matthieu has been working to advance lieux-dits in Chinon. His winemaking remains straightforward and old-fashioned: slow fermentations in concrete and tronconic wood vats, concrete ageing for basic wines, older barrels for single-parcel wines, with élevage between one and two years. "To put our wines in bottles after a year is just a bit early."
The wines
Chinon Les Granges is most basic, from lower sand and gravel plots: always plumper in plum fruit with quintessential dried-chile kick. Chinon Domaine, counterintuitively from one of the highest parcels on sand-and-limestone plateau, ferments in concrete for fifteen months: generosity and saline tension forming perfect Chinon snapshot. Les Grézeaux is a parcel just up from Les Granges where gravel hillocks stress sixty-five-year-old vines: quieter, less spicy, more mineral and rose-petal floral.
Le Clos Guillot shows stressed yellow mid-slope limestone and clay with relatively young vines: perfect Cabernet Franc amplitude with dried ancho, violets, silken tannins. La Croix Boisée from micaceous limestone ages in older barrels: sometimes showing wood amid iodine and intense fruit. That parcel also sources Chinon Blanc La Croix Boisée: aged briefly in large barrels for warm, honeyed Chenin-on-limestone.
There's also straight Chinon Blanc, standout Chinon Rosé, and Grolleau Franc de Pied from young own-rooted vines revealing that grape's historic charms with dense spice.
Couly-Dutheil
Chinon | Chinon | Historic Estate
Founded in 1921, Couly-Dutheil is one of Chinon's historic reference points. Long before Cabernet Franc became a sommelier fixation, Couly's wines helped define what serious Chinon looked like beyond the Loire, finding their way into restaurant cellars and onto lists as a dependable benchmark. The modern story has been about sharpening that legacy and reconnecting it firmly to site.
That connection is clearest on the slopes above the town of Chinon itself. Chinon is a place where position matters as much as grape, and Couly's holdings read like a lesson in altitude and soil. Valley-floor parcels deliver ease and fruit; limestone slopes bring structure and longevity. At the top of that hierarchy sit the estate's defining vineyards, carved into tuffeau limestone.
Winemaking is classical and restrained. Cabernet Franc is handled for aromatic clarity rather than extraction, fermentations are controlled, and élevage is matched to the ambition of each cuvée. Stainless and concrete preserve freshness in the earlier-drinking wines; oak appears only where structure and time demand it, used as a frame rather than a flavour.
The wines
Chinon "Tradition" is the entry point: supple red fruit, a gentle leafy note, modest tannins and real drinkability. It captures Chinon's essential charm without dilution.
Chinon "Les Chanteaux", typically drawn from sandier or flatter sites, leans rounder and more immediately generous. Plum fruit and soft spice lead, with tannins kept low and the emphasis firmly on approachability.
Clos de l'Écho is the estate's emblematic wine. From a south-facing amphitheatre of tuffeau limestone directly behind the château, it delivers Cabernet Franc with composure and mineral authority. Darker fruit, graphite, dried herbs and a cool, chalky finish define the wine. Structured in youth, it gains savoury depth and quiet confidence with time.
Clos de l'Olive is where Couly steps decisively into the conversation with the most serious Chinon domaines. Also rooted in tuffeau limestone, but from a distinct exposition, it turns Cabernet Franc more architectural: compact, darker fruit, pencil-lead minerality, firmer tannins and that unmistakable "cool cellar" feeling that only limestone seems to deliver. It is the bottle to decant young if curiosity wins, or forget about for five to ten years if discipline prevails.
At the top end, Baronnie Madeleine plays the long game. More concentrated and structured again, it is unapologetically built for ageing, resolving slowly into depth and completeness rather than offering early persuasion.
Couly also produces Chinon Blanc, a Chenin Blanc shaped by limestone rather than sweetness, gently honeyed, saline and structured, and a Chinon Rosé that reminds you the Loire can do refreshment with flavour and seriousness in equal measure.
Taken together, Couly-Dutheil shows Chinon not as a single style but as a hierarchy of sites, with Clos de l'Écho and Clos de l'Olive articulating just how clearly Cabernet Franc can speak when limestone is allowed to lead.
Nicolas Grosbois
Panzoult | Chinon | Certified Organic
Nicolas Grosbois's laissez-faire 9-hectare domaine in far east Chinon preserves the appellation's unreconstructed agrarian side. The land has moved into organics and remains in polyculture, primarily grapes and grains. There's an unfussy vibe: the sort of Chinon that made the appellation a bistro darling.
The wines
La Cuisine de Ma Mère from relatively young-vine Cabernet Franc aged in concrete is very Franc and fecund in its damp leaves and carrot-stem character. Lady Cab hews similarly but uses fifty-year-old vines. Gabare and Clos du Noyer from older vines on steeper slopes are more stoic and firm from long ageing (former in concrete, latter in old wood).
Olga Raffault
Savigny-en-Véron | Chinon | Certified Organic
This 25-hectare property has long shown Chinon's more profound side and leveraged deeper history. Olga Raffault owned the estate through much of the first half of the twentieth century; her son Jean was longtime winemaker, and vintages dating to the 1970s are still fresh and available. Granddaughter Sylvie Raffault took over in the early 2000s with husband Éric de la Vigerie, running the domaine hands-on with son Arnaud.
Much ageing occurs in steel including old dairy tanks, with mostly larger old wood (oak and chestnut) for some top wines. Parcels are largely in the Véron countryside between Loire and Vienne rivers, where land is gentler and more alluvial than upriver.
The wines
In addition to estate red Chinon from bought grapes, Les Barnabés from sand and gravel shows charcoal-and-burnt-herb ferocity marking Raffault wines. Les Peuilles from clay-silica in Beaumont-en-Véron is curiously less structured with crushed-rose fragrance.
Les Picasses is the classic from clay-limestone near Beaumont: given extra élevage, always rugged with Raffault signature tar and candied violets, never friendly young but always rewarding after a decade or more. Musky La Singulière takes fifty-year-old Picasses portion for wood ageing.
Quintessential Chinon Rosé and Champ-Chenin, their single-hectare Chinon Blanc: quiet but wound-up in Raffault style with ripe quince and intense mineral finish.
BOURGUEIL & SAINT-NICOLAS-DE-BOURGUEIL
Domaine du Bel Air
Benais | Bourgueil | Certified Organic
Pierre and Catherine Gauthier have quietly lifted eastern Bourgueil's reputation by shifting to organic farming in 2000 and making wines showing both the appellation's easygoing bistro nature and deeper ambitions. Today son Rodolphe advances the work using all-destemmed fruit and indigenous yeasts.
The wines
Jour de Soif is entry-level, aged six months in steel for fresh, lean Bourgueil. Les Vingt Lieux Dits, obviously from blended parcels, hits a sweet spot: light in step but showing dark berry and chicory revealing full terroir charm. Clos Nouveau from one of Bourgueil's historic monastic vineyards is wound-up and structured. Grand Mont from seventy-five-year-old vines with two years' ageing reveals deep mineral intensity Bourgueil offers at its best.
Domaine Breton
Restigné | Bourgueil, Chinon, Vouvray | Certified Biodynamic
The transmission of natural-wine precepts to the Loire traces partly to Pierre Breton meeting Marcel Lapierre in 1990. That prompted a path to organics then biodynamics, and for more than twenty years Pierre and wife Catherine have been a cohesive force holding together vins libres in the Loire while galvanising natural wine spirit throughout France. The Épaulé Jeté poster (clean and jerk, except here with wine glass) is seemingly mandatory décor in any natural-wine bar.
Their home base just east of Bourgueil now sees son Paul, trained with Vincent Carême in Vouvray, increasingly taking over alongside sister France, who joined in 2018. Holdings continue growing from current 21 hectares. Concrete eggs sit in a tidy new cellar with tronconic wood for carbonic work and steel, while malolactic occurs in barrels including large-format for whites.
The Dilettante wines
Catherine's project includes user-friendly Vouvray in still and sparkling forms; unsulphured carbonic Bourgueil with carnation notes; and Moustillant pét-nat.
Estate wines
Several Chinons exist, with Les Beaux Monts best known: fleshy matched to typically hard-edged structure. Seven Bourgueils include Trinch!, its own cult hit aged in steel for easy-drinking earthen huckleberry; Clos Sénéchal and Les Perrières from single parcels.
Nuits d'Ivresse, their no-sulphur Jules Chauvet homage, remains crucial: longtime demonstration of Cabernet Franc's subtler tones, sanguine but generous in texture. Avis de Vin Fort, their clairet version introduced in 2009, is neither rosé nor red after week-long maceration: a symbol of Loire Franc as base for a new wave.
A young-drinking Grolleau made Beaujolais-style in partial carbonic releases in spring.
Domaine de la Chevalerie
Restigné | Bourgueil | Certified Biodynamic
Domaine de la Chevalerie, a historic property dating to 1640, has become one of Bourgueil's great hopes under siblings Emmanuel, Stéphanie, and Laurie Caslot. (Stéphanie's 2021 death made the progress all the more poignant.) Their family has owned the estate through centuries, and while latest generation ushered in biodynamics, winemaking principles remain constant for long-ageing, classically styled examples.
Fermentations are indigenous, ageing relatively brief in larger old wood casks providing transparency to single-parcel wines.
The wines
Diptyque is entry-level with about six months in mostly concrete: fragrant, pronounced in noble vegetal Cabernet Franc character. Galichets from lower stony soils, vines up to eighty years old, is more dark-spiced with an almost Lebowski-like chill. Chevalerie moves to clay-heavy soils for weightier but silken texture. Busardières from 1880s vines on dense clay high up is broader, more intense in tannins.
Sébastien David
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil | Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil | Certified Biodynamic
Sébastien David's family has farmed Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil since 1634, yet his progressive thinking makes him perfect guide to conduct this sluggish appellation into the twenty-first century. His underground cellar in an old mushroom cave contains concrete eggs resembling alien starships.
David returned from making fruit wines in New England in 1999 to take over 15 hectares split into 54 parcels, all now biodynamic.
He's best known for his high-profile legal fight against the DGCCRF (Répression des Fraudes), which ordered destruction of his 2016 Coëf for alleged excessive volatile acidity. Because he stopped using cellar sulphur in 2007, his case embodied the unbridgeable dissonance between natural wine and French authorities; an online petition supporting him garnered 175,000 signatures.
His wines are typically beautiful examples of what Saint-Nicolas achieves with low yields, better farming, and careful cellar work. His ageing vessel choices control Cabernet Franc's tannins and vegetal side. "I don't like green pepper and I don't like harsh tannins, so that's my job. I almost never think about the fruit. It's always the tannins, the tannins, the tannins."
The wines
L'Hurluberlu, given about twenty-five days in partial carbonic concrete, rarely reveals those carbonic roots: smoke, ancho chile, mashed-plum forwardness. "Carbonic is nice, but it's not Gamay. It's Cabernet Franc, and Cabernet Franc is made for ageing."
Coëf from same parcel mix ages for a year in terra-cotta amphorae: closed, ashy, less chile-spiced than charred, with tense tannic structure. Kezako starts in barrels but winds up with nearly two years in concrete eggs, moving to syrah-like spice and charcoal with sleekness proving his point about tannin management.
Le Petit Hérisson he often sells as bag-in-box, ever the pragmatist.
MONTLOUIS & VOUVRAY
Understanding how taste works helps explain why Chenin Blanc from these neighbouring appellations can express such remarkable diversity, from bone-dry to lusciously sweet, still to sparkling.
Jacky & Jean-Philippe Blot
Montlouis-sur-Loire | Montlouis, Vouvray, Bourgueil | Certified Organic
Jacky Blot is one of the Loire's most vocal defenders, seeing it as one of the world's great wine-growing regions. His two properties provide essential evidence: Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in Montlouis and Domaine de la Butte in Bourgueil are each exceptional appellation reference points.
Originally from Brittany, Blot held varied jobs (paratrooper, pâtissier, wine broker) before buying Montlouis land in the 1980s. Organic farming was feasible from the beginning since the old farmer refused chemical treatments, believing pesticides American-made. There's a bounty of old vines and deep belief in massale from Blot's own parcels. Increasingly, son Jean-Philippe takes on estate work.
Blot believes sugar blurs Chenin's ability to reveal its best qualities; thus his winemaking is almost fanatically Burgundian. He borrows from Burgundy's elite cadre, including methods from Jean-Marc Roulot: slow pressing, oxygen exposure, long slow barrel fermentation (even for sparkling), long wood ageing (perhaps 20 percent new), no stirring, almost never malolactic, then months in steel before bottling to firm texture.
Domaine de la Taille aux Loups
This precision explains the exquisite finesse of sparkling Triple Zéro from forty-year-old Chenin: no chaptalisation, no added tirage sugar (bottled with about 12 grams natural sugar per litre), no dosage. A lab isolate of cellar indigenous yeasts drives second fermentation. The refined mousse sells this wine: pine-needle Chenin crackle with autolytic richness rather than yeastiness.
Triple Zéro Rosé achieves much the same from century-old Gamay and Grolleau: warm spice undertone rather than verdant Chenin bite.
Montlouis whites start with Remus, a mix of parcels up to eighty years old: jangly like dry limeade with corn-silk textural polish. Clos Michet from sandier plot shows austere upfront then ripe tree fruit. Les Hauts de Husseau from vines up to 120 years old is expansive yet earthbound with dark mineral and rye-seed spice. Clos de Mosny from fifty-year-old vines on flint is supple and seemingly sweet (but fully dry), with astonishing iodine and black-mustard-seed layers. Full yet precise: Chenin to humble Meursault.
Vouvray
Clos de la Brétonnière from monopole of sixty-year-old Noizay vines is powerful with crushed gravel and caraway from clay-limestone. Venise from nearby monopole is more plush: iris, white stone, grapefruit fleshiness.
Sweet wines include Romulus, liquoreux Montlouis of toffee and steel.
Domaine de la Butte
The Bourgueil reds, all destemmed and aged in concrete and older wood, study the south-facing slope in terms worthy of Côte de Nuits conversation.
Le Pied de la Butte is low on slope from thirty-year-old vines on clay: overtly Cabernet Franc with roasted chile and fresh plum. Le Haut de la Butte from top of slope, vines around thirty-five years on flint, is more strenuous and bloody with bay leaf and aloe. Mi-Pente from seventy-five-year-old vines midway up is dense, slow-opening: blistered ancho, black olive, garrigue herbs. Perrières from one hectare of thirty-year-old vines, fermented and aged in wood, shows perfume and violets amid rich fruit: most lyrical of the lot.
Vincent & Tania Carême
Vernou-sur-Brenne | Vouvray | Certified Organic
Vincent and Tania Carême have served as a magnet for Vouvray, drawing in and encouraging young vignerons so that nearly every new guard member has spent time in their cellar. Their gaze extends further: they also make wine from Tania's native South Africa's Swartland, a bicontinental Chenin bond.
They effectively created their domaine in 1999, building on a small lot from Vincent's parents and adding a larger property carved into tuffeau in 2004. Now 17 hectares on clay-flint and clay-limestone.
Winemaking is light-touch: indigenous yeasts, 500-litre oak puncheons plus sandstone amphorae for ageing, lots of lees use, occasionally natural malolactic.
The wines
Spring is young-drinking Vouvray from purchased grapes aged in tanks and wood: forward acidity with fresh-cut quince. Vouvray Sec needs bottle time to reveal warm spice and deep mineral presence.
Le Peu Morier, aged a year in wood, sits on mineral austerity with beautiful mustard-lentil savouriness. Le Clos is the hammerhead from mostly old vines on tuffeau: Vouvray in full with menthol freshness, generous candied pear, autumnal one moment then spring-like in herbal side.
Vouvray Brut ages up to eighteen months sur latte: dry and sinewed. L'Ancestrale is essentially Vouvray pét-nat: graphite-edged with deep pear-drop fruitiness. Fizzy Pink, just off-dry from Gamay de Bouze, Côt, Cabernet Franc, and Grolleau, pleases with darker fruit and rose-hip bite.
There's also non-botrytis Première Trie sweet wine.
François Chidaine
Montlouis-sur-Loire | Montlouis, Vouvray | Certified Biodynamic
The modern ascendance of Montlouis essentially wouldn't have happened without François and Manuéla Chidaine and their diligence showing the appellation's grand possibilities. François took over from his father Yves in 1989 and moved quickly into organics then biodynamics, which have effectively become Montlouis default.
He's a keen student of central Loire history, pointing out that Touraine cellars historically used larger demi-muids, which is why he's continued the practice. Daughter Alice, who apprenticed at Clos Rougeard and with the Dagueneaus, has begun taking over winemaking, pushing beyond her father toward austerity. As François puts it, Montlouis should be "a bit austere in its youth."
Crucially, having evangelised biodynamics, the Chidaines now farm their 37 hectares using regenerative agriculture: no-till to trap carbon and preserve mycorrhizal networks.
Montlouis
Wines grow on tuffeau and clay-flint, mostly single parcels. Clos du Breuil from flinty soils tends lacy and saline. Les Choisilles (denoting a type of black flint) is quiet then glossy. Clos Habert, next to Clos du Breuil but better-drained, makes slightly off-dry with mashed pear.
Les Bournais from relatively young vines on purer tuffeau, a site Chidaine reveres, is sometimes deceptively baby-fatted, hiding rigid bright mineral backbone. Les Bournais Franc de Pied from own-rooted subparcel amps this further. Les Grillonnières is Alice's special project from ninety-year-old parcel: case study in her mineral-driven austerity preference.
Montlouis Méthode Traditionnelle, piney and strong, really got ancestrale-style Montlouis going.
Vouvray
The Chidaines hold prime land across the river but cannot officially use the appellation. Les Argiles, usually from five plots surrounding Clos Baudoin, has superb interplay between bony mineral backbone and almost honeyed fruit. Bouchet from north-facing vineyard in killer neighbourhood (Clos Baudoin on one side, Huet's Clos du Bourg on other), vines up to eighty years, shows pitch-perfect precision in subtle sweetness.
Clos Baudoin itself, originally source of great Prince Poniatowski wines, yields regal fleshy Chenin with tree fruit and white-sesame polish.
Touraine wines include raspberry-ish Touraine Rosé from Pinot and Grolleau; Touraine Rouge blend of Cabernet Franc, Côt, and Pineau d'Aunis; and Le Chenin d'Ailleurs from Limoux, that grape's great southern home.
La Grange Tiphaine
Amboise | Montlouis, Touraine | Certified Biodynamic
Damien and Coralie Delecheneau run La Grange Tiphaine, a 15-hectare property long belonging to his family. Damien took over in 2002, Coralie joined in 2008. Tiphaine straddles Montlouis (where Damien has served as appellation president) and broader Touraine, with wines reflecting both appellations' best charms through biodynamic farming refined in the early 2010s and Damien's precise technical skills.
Montlouis
Nouveau Nez is their most familiar bottling: close-to-pétillant with frothy, frisky side and corn silk texture. Les Épinays is quintessential still Montlouis from younger vines aged eighteen months, slow to open. Clef de Sol Blanc and Les Grenouillères (demi-sec) step up complexity.
Touraine
Rose, Rose, Rosam is domaine pétillant from Grolleau: wonderfully brisk and musky with burnt orange-peel edge. Ad Libitum mixes Côt, Gamay, and Cabernet Franc aged in concrete: pleasing vegetal Touraine snapshot. Clef de Sol Rouge is Franc and Côt in barrels: more rugged. Côt Vieilles Vignes is splendid: flowery modulated by black tea and dried tangerine.
Le Clos de la Meslerie
Vernou-sur-Brenne | Vouvray | Certified Organic and Biodynamic
While working Paris finance, American Peter Hahn spent four years scouring France for contiguous property. He found one in 2002, history dating to the 1620s, but vines were leased another five years. This gave time to study winemaking in Amboise and apprentice with Vincent Carême before his 2008 first vintage.
Le Clos de la Meslerie's four parcels sit on a hill above Brenne Valley in a cooler appellation corner with more flint and clay than tuffeau. Yields are low at about 20 hl/ha. Farming includes organic and biodynamic practices plus marcottage (propagation using attached shoots). Parcels are vinified separately, aged in wood (few new barrels steamed not toasted), then blended into one still wine allowed to ferment until it stops, hence some vintage variation in final sugar levels.
The wines
Vouvray can have sweetness (65 grams in 2015) but usually retains astonishing acidity for big, generous wine. With light agave syrup and bay laurel accents plus finessed phenolics, it's Vouvray amplification: Hahn's century-old basket press doing best work.
Vouvray Extra Brut Champagne-style is distinct in sheer density and sharp, focused bubbles.
Jean-Pierre Robinot / L'Ange Vin
Chahaignes | Jasnières | Organic Principles
"Nous sommes Charlie" reads the door sign at Jean-Pierre Robinot's L'Ange Vin, showing respect for slain Charlie Hebdo journalists and indicating his complicated career. That includes years running Paris bistros, seminal natural-wine community years, and wine journalism co-launching Le Rouge & Le Blanc magazine.
Robinot's property in his native Sarthe, where he returned in 2001, is a bit entropically messy, but his hillside caves are orderly, proper spots for years-long ageing as he waits for wines to sort themselves out.
This has made Robinot a risk-taker. But the long wait, sometimes four years or more, comes from nuanced understanding of Jules Chauvet's philosophy: work without sulphur proceeds on different timeline, yielding different results. "Living wine is a creation, and so there are multiple interpretations of it."
Robinot co-founded Les Vins S.A.I.N.S., perhaps the hardest-edged natural-wine association, and remains a naturalist world mainstay.
The wines
Drinking Robinot requires catching wines at the right moment; when in good shape, always compelling if sometimes odd.
Bistrologie is young-vine Chenin for young consumption: perfectly framing tension but sometimes wobbly in flavours. Lumière de Silex is testament to long-aged Chenin: usually waxy, magnificently preserved. Lumière des Sens is red counterpart from Pineau d'Aunis.
L'Iris from ninety-year-old Chenin is burly and ripe. Juliette is essentially Jasnières from centenary vines, barrels untopped: sombre flint minerality with yellow fruit. Nocturne and Camille are both reds from eighty-plus-year-old Pineau d'Aunis; the former ages at least three years.
Fêtembulles, his Chenin pét-nat, becomes vivacious with oxygen.
TOURAINE
Les Cailloux du Paradis
Soings-en-Sologne | Touraine | Certified Biodynamic
Claude Courtois founded Les Cailloux du Paradis in 1991, having moved to this relative wine backwater after fire destroyed his Var property. He pulled out much planting, working instead with varieties that interested him including Sacy and Gascon, as well as local Romorantin.
He and son Étienne, who joined in 2007, have taken the melting pot extreme: forty-one varieties planted mostly for field blends, with more coming like Meslier Saint-François (rare Gouais Blanc and Chenin offspring).
Claude's early biodynamic farming, no-till practices, unusual blends, and improbable location at Touraine's edge drew loyal following. "When I start to talk about French new-wave," Étienne stops me, "my father's been doing it for forty years. I'd say it's an old wave."
Étienne farms most of the original 7 hectares while older brother Julien has the other half. Soils are more flint and silica than Touraine proper. They grow wheat and have added livestock for integrated farming. Étienne kept Claude's old cellar while Claude builds a new one for remaining hectares he still works.
The wines
Wines have gained what Claude calls "more saline" quality over time. Romorantin ages up to four years: ripe mirabelle-plum with intense saltiness. Quartz is Sauvignon and Menu Pineau macerated for a month: rustic with apricot freshness. Évidence is funkish, botrytised Menu Pineau.
Reds include musky juicy Cuvée des Étourneaux from dark-juiced Gamay de Chaudenay and Gamay Noir; L'Éconais, rare varietal Gascon.
Masterpiece Racines is Claude's original red blend of about thirty varieties: deeply floral and piney, layers subtly revealing themselves. Racines Blanc from twelve varieties is pleasingly waxy with green-papaya and pineapple. Élégie is striking pétillant from Gamay de Chaudenay and Pineau d'Aunis with deep rose-hip spice.
Laurent Saillard
Pouillé | Touraine | Certified Biodynamic
Laurent Saillard presents an interesting study in how natural wine has created new career tracks. After travelling and working on an organic India farm, Saillard returned to France and wound up dishwashing at Le Repaire de Cartouche, a Parisian natural-wine headquarters. By 2011, he had persuaded Thierry Puzelat, an early Loire natural-wine convert, to help launch a domaine.
Today Saillard has carved out a following on a shoestring with 6 biodynamic hectares in outer Touraine. Few wineries better illustrate new-generation success; his Sauvignon-based wines are near-impossible to find despite minimal marketing.
The wines
All are loose and unpretentious. Le P'tit Blanc, tank-aged Sauvignon, embodies herbal side: all grapefruit and green herbs, delicious but not capturing Saillard's full potential.
Sauvignon Blanc Perrière, fermented in old barrels, shows Sauvignon's best nature: grassy without funk, more serious fruit and texture. Blanc de Mauzay, Burgundy-sourced Aligoté, is perfect: fresh and textured without being lean. Chenin Blanc is delicate cider flavours with bright acidity and citrus-pith astringency.
Rouge from Côt and Gamay can be loose-limbed, but Château Gaillard from vines up to 120 years is smoky, cool, all dark fruit and liquorice. Pin'Eau, his Pineau d'Aunis, is signature: sumptuous velvet and white pepper.
SANCERRE & POUILLY-FUMÉ
François Cotat
Chavignol | Sancerre | Organic Principles
François Cotat's wines rarely reach retail, and his name isn't always easy to find unless trading gossip about hidden Sancerre treasures. But meticulous François and cousin Pascal together represent the appellation's conscience.
François's 4-hectare domaine was taken over from father Paul in 2007 with very little philosophy change. Farming has long been essentially organic.
He uses only old barrels and relies on sixteenth-century cellars built at Monts Damnés' base to maintain naturally low temperatures, about 9°C/48°F. Wines ferment slowly there on indigenous yeasts, sometimes for months, and age up to a year before bottling without filtration. This is what used to pass for good Sancerre winemaking, until the 1990s anyway.
The wines
Sancerre Chavignol and Sancerre Monts Damnés are calling cards: the former steely and herbal, the latter with richness and nutty depth not unlike good white Burgundy. Depending on vintage, Cotat may bottle from La Grande Côte or Les Culs de Beaujeu, as well as Rosé and demi-sec sweet wines for which his cellars are ideal.
Louis-Benjamin Dagueneau
Saint-Andelain | Pouilly-Fumé | Certified Organic
There was a distinct before and after Dagueneau in Pouilly-Fumé: the late Didier Dagueneau's obsessive drive marked the line of demarcation for improving appellation reputation. He was a true original, a former motorcycle racer who revived his family property and pushed it to limits.
After Didier's 2008 plane crash death, his children Charlotte and Louis-Benjamin, the latter largely trained by his father, have maintained this 13-hectare estate near the top of its category. Whether with his father's penchant for acacia barrels or ongoing pursuit of terroir's "magic" in pristine silex-soil expressions, the domaine continues progress. This includes sourcing Saumur Chenin for limited Fume de Loire and pursuing organic viticulture with regenerative no-till practices.
Winemaking remains fastidious: indigenous fermentations, barrel ageing, twenty months on lees followed by months more in steel. The wines have power and polish putting them in Grand Cru Burgundy company, rarely seen in Sauvignon.
The wines
Blanc Fumé de Pouilly is base wine from purchased grapes fermented in new oak: more fruit and slightly overt oak than estate wines. Les Jardins de Babylone from thirty-year-old vines on Kimmeridgian marl has distinctly tropical sweet-fruited side.
Then the magic begins. En Chailloux from clay-limestone Saint-Laurent-l'Abbaye at Pouilly's southern reach, fermented in tank, has herbal side with powerful quince. Pur Sang from silex, fermented in older barrels, is polished and powerful with darker mineral undertow. Silex from hard-flint, fermented in newer wood, is powerful and weighty with toasted-sesame aspect and remarkable white-stone intensity.
These wines often need at least five years but rewards await.
Domaine Claude Riffault
Sury-en-Vaux | Sancerre | Certified Organic
Stéphane Riffault grew up in Sury-en-Vaux, just west of more famous Chavignol, learning from father Claude who founded the domaine in early 1980s after leaving the local co-op where he'd been cellar master. Stéphane took over in 2005, right in time for nasty 2006 spring frost, quickly pivoting to organic-focused approach matching his philosophy.
The domaine now has 15 hectares, predominantly clay-limestone with fair flint. Stéphane's hand is light: indigenous fermentations, about eight months on lees, mostly tanks with some barrels.
The wines
Les Boucauds from clay-flint, fermented and aged in steel, is bright and crunchy in lemon. Les Chasseignes from Sury's western limestone, also tank-aged, shows nervier, more linear side. Les Denisottes from flint, partially oak-aged, has more breadth and richer texture. Sancerre Calcaire is single-parcel from purer limestone, fermented in larger barrels: broader structure with darker minerality.
Sancerre Rosé and Sancerre Rouge, both Pinot Noir from marl and limestone.
Domaine Vacheron
Sancerre | Sancerre | Certified Biodynamic
Domaine Vacheron holds particular Loire significance: when the family initially sought organic certification, it faced harsh pushback from appellation authorities. That perseverance made them notable, and today the 50-hectare estate farmed biodynamically stands as model for what Sancerre can achieve.
Family-run since 1890, the present generation, cousins Jean-Dominique and Jean-Laurent, took over in 1994 and moved toward organics, solidified when they hired Anne-Claude Leflaive's biodynamic consultant Pierre Masson. Diverse terroir includes flint, limestone, and clay across numerous parcels.
Winemaking is precise but not fussy: indigenous fermentations, steel and older barrels mixed for ageing, minimal sulphur.
The whites
Entry-level Sancerre Blanc from multiple parcels is always bright and mineral-driven. Les Romains from limestone has taut, saline profile. Chambrates from flint delivers smoky intensity with darker fruit. Le Paradis from single old-vine limestone parcel is most concentrated with citrus and stone layers. Belle Dame from oldest vines on clay-flint, fermented and aged in larger barrels, is broad and textured with depth rivalling fine white Burgundy.
The reds
Sancerre Rouge from Pinot Noir is silky and fresh. Single-parcel bottlings like La Côte and La Belle Dame show greater structure and complexity.
Anne Vatan
Chavignol | Sancerre | Organic Principles
Anne Vatan represents a quiet but vital Sancerre thread. Her family has farmed Chavignol since 1719, and she took over her father's 4-hectare domaine in 2016, making her one of the appellation's few female vigneronnes.
Farming is essentially organic, winemaking follows suit: indigenous fermentations, ageing in older barrels and tanks, minimal intervention.
The wines
Sancerre Chavignol from limestone and flint is always precise and mineral-driven with bright citrus core. A separate bottling from older Monts Damnés vines shows greater depth and concentration.
Through her thoughtful stewardship of family land, Vatan continues centuries-old tradition whilst demonstrating that even well-established appellations hold room for quiet excellence.
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