There remain a few wines from the Saumur district which are unique. They are mostly still wines, red and white an rosé, made from the traditional grape varieties, plus the Pinot Noir, in Parnay and Brézé and Montsoreau and Dampierre and Champigny-le-Sec. The local demand for these is well in excess of the production, and most of the vignerons treat prospective buyers as di Monsieur Cristal, the famous old proprietor of the Château de Parnay, who would say to the uninitiated and unworthy, “Sell you my wine?” and laugh.
The greatest wines of Anjou come from considerably farther downstream, from two small districts southwest of the historic old city of Angers—the Coteaux du Layon and the Coteaux de la Loire. The latter really consists of little more than the one lovely township of Savennieres, and its most celebrate vineyards are the Coulée de Serrant, the Château d'Epiré, and the Roche-aux- Moines.
The much more extensive Coteaux du Layon take their name from one of the Loire's tributaries, and a half-dozen vineyard towns strung along the Layon produce lovely golden wines which are quite in a class with the great Sauternes of good years. The most famous single name, perhaps, is Quart de Chaume (a vineyard in the commune of Rochefort), but wines that carry such appellations as Beaulieu-sur-Layon, St. Aubin-de- Luigne, Rablay, Faye-sur-Layon, an Thouarce are well worth looking for. All too little known in America, these, in years such as 1943, 1945, and 1947 (an incomparably fine year everywhere), are among the most gracious and most charming of all the wines of that great vineyard which is France.
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