Montlouis-sur-Loire

Tuffeau, the soft chalk at the base of the plateau, was quarried from Roman times to the twentieth century, and the quarries became cellars for still and sparkling wine. From the fourteenth to the nineteenth centuries the vineyard's whites, able to keep and travel, went down the Loire to Nantes and on to northern Europe, commonly sold as Vouvray, then the name for the best whites of the Tours area. In the 1930s several judgments refused to attach the area to the Vouvray appellation, so growers of Lussault-sur-Loire, Montlouis-sur-Loire and Saint-Martin-le-Beau sought their own. AOC Montlouis was recognised by decree of 6 December 1938 and renamed Montlouis-sur-Loire in 2002.

Traditional-method trials began in the 1840s, and around 1900 Champagne specialists brought their skills. In 2008 about fifty growers farmed 400 ha, half for still wine and half for sparkling.

The vineyard lies on a limestone plateau forming a triangle bounded by the Loire to the north, the Cher to the south and the Amboise forest to the east, at 55 to 100 m. To the south-east the plateau slopes down to the Cher, cut by dry valleys; to the west and north it ends in a cliff of about 30 m. The plateau rests on Turonian chalk (micaceous chalk, yellow tuffeau) and Senonian chalk, exposed along the Cher, topped by Senonian clay-flint, locally Eocene puddingstone and gravel, and above all by high-terrace alluvial sands mixed with windblown sand. Delimited parcels are mostly clay-flint, sometimes clay-limestone, and the sand on the hilltops often gives a sandy texture. The growers' syndicate describes south-facing slopes between the Loire's left bank and the Cher's right bank.

The climate is degraded oceanic, where oceanic and continental influences meet, moderated by the Loire, with sometimes excellent autumns.

Chenin here is close to its eastern limit in the Loire valley, and its potential changes greatly with the soil. The specification describes dry still wines with fruit and flowers when young that turn to honey with age; wines with residual sugar keep longer, with exotic or dried fruit and later toasted almond or quince. In favourable autumns moelleux and doux wines come from grapes shrivelled on the vine or affected by noble rot. Sparkling wines have a fine, light mousse with white-fleshed fruit or citrus and brioche with time; pétillants are more vinous. Single-fermentation sparkling wines, from fully ripe grapes without added sugar, have creamy bubbles, white flowers and white fruit, and reflect the vintage.

Montlouis-sur-Loire is reserved for white still, sparkling and pétillant wines from Chenin only, as the appellation syndicate also states; clones 417 and 278 may not be planted. Base yields are 52 hl/ha for still wines and single-fermentation sparkling wines and 65 for other sparkling and pétillant wines. Traditional-method wines age at least 9 months on laths.

Single-fermentation sparkling wine, revived from the 2000s, is what the syndicate calls pétillant originel: it uses one fermentation instead of the traditional method's two. Still wines range from dry to sweet, so sweetness and production method should both be checked on the label.