Vouvray

Local legend, recorded as legend in the specification, says Saint Martin brought the grapes and short pruning still used when he founded Marmoutier monastery in 372; his donkey's appetite supposedly showed the value of short pruning. From the early thirteenth century white grapes were reserved for stony, calcareous slopes, and old texts name Chenin, locally "pineau de la Loire", as the noble grape; Rabelais praised "vin pineau". Monks spread the vineyard from the thirteenth century. The kings of France in the Touraine châteaux spread its reputation, and some crus belonged to the Crown. Dutch brokers sold the wines to northern Europe until the late nineteenth century.

A defence syndicate was formed in 1906 against merchants selling other wines as Vouvray. A 1929 judgment limited the name to seven communes, and the AOC was recognised by decree of 8 December 1936. A confrérie followed in 1937 and the growers' cooperative in 1953.

Near and upstream of Tours, the area is a plateau at 85 to 110 m, cut by valleys and dry combes that end in steep cliffs above the Loire. Soft Turonian chalk (tuffeau) forms its frame, and troglodyte cellars and houses are cut into the yellow tuffeau cliffs. Above it lie Senonian, Eocene and Mio-Pliocene clay-flint deposits, capped by Quaternary windblown loam. Delimited parcels are either on slopes, with clay-limestone soils, or on the plateau edges, with clay-flint soils.

The climate is a degraded oceanic one, where oceanic and continental influences meet. The Loire moderates temperatures, and the valleys drain cold air from the slopes. Summers usually bring at least one short heatwave, and rain is about 680 mm a year. Sunny autumns can allow extended ripening and, in suitable conditions, noble rot; the chance to make sweet wine changes with the season.

The specification places Vouvray at the climatic limit for Chenin, a late-ripening grape, and links this to an original aromatic expression and balance. The vintage effect is strong: grapes are more or less rich in sugar according to the site and the year, and that natural richness decides the type of wine. In favourable autumns the richest grapes, concentrated on the vine or affected by noble rot, make wines with high residual sugar. Young dry wines show fruit and flowers that turn to honey or lime blossom with age; sweeter wines keep longer and develop exotic fruit, toasted almond, honey and quince. Sparkling wines have a fine mousse, fruit or citrus and brioche with time; pétillants have less gas and a more vinous character.

Vouvray is reserved for white still, sparkling (mousseux) and semi-sparkling (pétillant) wines. The principal grape is Chenin, with Orbois as accessory grape up to 5%; Chenin clones 417 and 278 may not be planted. Base yields are 52 hl/ha for still wine and 65 for sparkling and pétillant wine. Still wines range from dry to demi-sec, moelleux and sweeter, so sweetness and sparkle should be checked separately.

Growers first learned to control wines that refermented naturally in bottle, the origin of pétillant, and began traditional-method trials in the 1840s; sparkling wines now age at least 12 months on laths. In 2009 about 165 operators farmed some 2,200 ha, making about 50,000 hl of still wine and nearly 70,000 hl of sparkling and pétillant wine.