A region as large as the Loire Valley has, as might be expected, not one grape but a half dozen or more, each specially suited to the province in which it is grown. As often as not, to make matters more confusing, the same grape will have three or four different local names. Fortunately, our botanists and ampelographers (a fifty-cent word for a botanist specializing in grapes) have begun to clear away a little of this debris and fin a few lowest common denominators. In view of the increasing trend towar grape names on American wine labels, this information is valuable to the layman as well as to the specialists.
The most celebrated white grape of the Loire, although known as the Pineau or Pinot de la Loire since the days of Rabelais, is not a true Pinot at all, but a no less distinguished vine properly called the Chenin Blanc. It has been identified in a number of California vineyards, particularly in Napa County, where its high quality and good productivity will certainly lead to its wider cultivation. In California, its wine is usually labeled White Pinot, to distinguish it from the Pinot Blanc, or true Pinot, of Burgundy. In the Loire Valley it is responsible for all of the wines of Vouvray, almost all of the great Anjous, an for the delightful lesser wines at Jasnières and Azay-le-Rideau.
Second in importance is the Sauvignon Blanc. This, in the Bordeaux country, is blended with the Semillon to produce both Sauternes and Graves. In California, it gives to wine a pronounce (sometimes too pronounced) character, but one of considerable distinction. On the Loire, especially around Sancerre an Pouilly-sur-Loire, where it is known as the Blanc-Fume, its wines have an extraordinary bouquet and great finesse; they are, to my own palate, the best straight Sauvignons in the world. Quincy an Reuilly are two other Loire districts in which the Sauvignon grape is treated with the respect which it deserves.
The other white grapes are of much less consequence. The so-called Muscadet of Nantes, which has the doubtful distinction of being the only wine made in Brittany, is a fresh and charming vin ordinaire made from the Melon, a commoner among grapes wherever grown. There is a little true Pinot Blanc, but less every year. And unfortunately, especially at Pouilly-sur-Loire, there is a good deal of Chasselas. This is an excellent and productive table grape, known as the Fendant in Switzerland, as the Gutedel in Germany, and as the Sweetwater, the French Chasselas, or the Chasselas Doré in California. It has no place in a wine press.
The great red wine grape of the Loire, the Breton, of which Rabelais and a hundred others have written with immemorial affection, is really the Cabernet Franc, called the Bouschet in St. Emilion and Pomerol, where it is the predominant variety. It is a close cousin of the Cabernet, or Cabernet Sauvignon, which is responsible for most of the outstanding red wines of California. In Touraine, it is the cépage of Chinon and Bourgeuil.
A small quantity of remarkable red wine, reputed to have been a favorite of Edward VII, has been made since about 1880 at the Chateau de Parnay and at Champigny, near Saumur, from the Burgundian Pinot Noir. And a great deal of good wine, throughout the Loire Valley, use to come and still does from the Malbec, or Cot, a red wine grape from Bordeaux. All of these, and several others less distinguished, are used in the production of vin rosé. Anjou Rose, except in the country of its origin, is hardly a name to inspire confidence on the average wine list.
And now to the vineyards:
Vouvray
Considering the fact that its over-all production is less than that of a good- sized vineyard in California, Vouvray is surprisingly well known in America, and plenty of people who don't know the difference between Geisenheimer and Graves seem to have at least one bit of occult wine lore at their finger tips—Vouvray, they will tell you confidentially, does not travel. I had always attributed Vouvray's widespread reputation along these lines to the fact that most of the people who like Vouvray do travel, which of course recalls the story of Mohammed and the mountain. It was only during World War II (I was not old enough to be bottled in Worl War I) that I learned the truth; the fame of Vouvray, so far as the Unite States is concerned, is based on a streetcar line.
En avant, my friends and pères de famille, officers and doughboys of 1917, come forward to my defense! Surely some of you remember when AFHQ was at Tours, and the streetcar line that ran over the old, gray stone bridge across the Loire to St. Symphorien and Ste Radegonde, and an infantryman coul make Vouvray from Radegonde in under half an hour. Plenty of us, in World War II, owed our bon accueil to the friends you made, and if you were told that Vouvray does not travel, it was perhaps in the hope that you woul come back to drink it at the end of the streetcar line.
For Vouvray, obviously, does travel. Anjou is a good deal like Vouvray, an long before we knew as much about wine-making as we do today, the better wines of Anjou were classified as “vins pour la mer” (for shipment overseas), and the less good as “vins pour Paris.” I have drunk good Vouvray aged seventy in Vouvray itself, and admirable Vouvray aged thirty in New York.
Technically speaking. Vouvray is a white wine, still or sparkling, or in a sort of delightful intermediate limbo where it may be perlant, or pétillant, or crémant (various degrees of natural sparkle); it must be made from the Chenin Blanc, or Pineau de la Loire; and it must come from one of eight communes, or townships, on the north bank of the Loire a few miles east of Tours. Just for the record, since you are not likely to see these names on a label, the communes, from west to east, are Ste Radegonde, Parcay-Meslay, Rochecorbon, Vouvray, Vernou, Noizay, Chancay, and Reugny.
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