Loire: Chenin, Cabernet Franc and the natural Anjou

The Loire is one grape read twice. Chenin Blanc, along the Touraine and Anjou stretch of the river in western France, runs from bone-dry to liquoreux and sparkling, and the same vine gives different answers on the tuffeau limestone around Vouvray and on the schist west of Angers. Cabernet Franc is the red between them, in Chinon and Saumur-Champigny. Six days from Paris, five estates: two classic Chenin cellars facing each other across the river at Vouvray and Montlouis, the Loire’s most patient red at Chacé, then the natural Anjou around Thouarcé and the schist of Savennières. Six to ten guests, a table every evening, the train in and out. The Loire guide has the soils and the appellations in detail.

Day 1: Paris to Vouvray#

We meet at 09:30 under the departures board at Paris Montparnasse and take the TGV together, an hour to Saint-Pierre-des-Corps, where the minibus waits. Tours is home for two nights, a small hotel in the old town a few streets from Place Plumereau, but we do not stop there yet. Ten kilometres east, Vouvray sits on the north bank at 80 to 100 metres, and the village is dug into tuffeau, the soft Turonian limestone that keeps a cellar at 12 °C in every season. Lunch at 12:30 in Vouvray: rillettes de Tours, then sandre au beurre blanc with a Vouvray sec. In the afternoon we walk the plateau above the river between Le Haut-Lieu and Le Mont, brown clay under one, flint under the other. At 17:30 in the hotel I pour the week’s vocabulary: Chenin sec, demi-sec, moelleux and pétillant, then one Cabernet Franc. Welcome dinner in Tours, Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine to finish.

Day 2: Vouvray and Montlouis, Huet and the Taille aux Loups#

At 10:00 we are at Domaine Huet. Victor and Constance Huet bought Le Haut-Lieu in 1928; their son Gaston, mayor of Vouvray for over four decades, built the name; Noël Pinguet turned the vines biodynamic in 1988; Sarah Hwang runs it today and Benjamin Joliveau has made the wine since 2012. Three vineyards, about 30 hectares, one grape. In the galleries, the sites against each other: Le Mont Sec, linear, smoky flint, the longest-lived; Clos du Bourg Demi-Sec, where a little sugar reads as structure, not sweetness. Lunch in Vouvray. At 15:00 we cross the Loire to Husseau in Montlouis-sur-Loire, where Jacky Blot founded Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in 1988 to make Montlouis Vouvray’s equal; his son Jean-Philippe leads now. Barrels of 400 to 600 litres, picking in passes, dry wines first: Rémus, then Clos de Mosny, then the Triple Zéro, a pét-nat with no chaptalisation, liqueur or dosage. Dinner is free tonight in Tours.

Day 3: Tours to Chinon to Saumur#

Bags in the minibus at 09:30 for Chinon, 45 minutes south-west on the Vienne, where Cabernet Franc still goes by its old local name, Breton. The royal fortress stands on its ridge above the plane trees. Below it, on the slopes toward Cravant-les-Coteaux, a family estate opens its tuffeau cellar for us: gravel terraces near the river for the wines to drink young, clay-limestone up the slope for the ones that keep. Lunch in Chinon is the pairing locals actually do: rillons with a Chinon poured at 14 °C, which surprises anyone who thinks red means room temperature. At 15:30 we follow the Loire 30 kilometres down to Saumur, our base for two nights in a small hotel by the river under the white château. The sparkling houses line the tuffeau cliff at Saint-Hilaire-Saint-Florent, a few kilometres downstream. Dinner in Saumur, then the levee if the light holds; in late June it holds until 22:00.

Day 4: Varrains, Chacé and the Clos Rougeard table#

Saumur-Champigny is red only: Cabernet Franc on clay-limestone over tuffeau in a few villages south-east of Saumur. At 10:00 in Varrains, six kilometres out, a young organic grower takes us seven metres down into galleries left by the quarrying; barrels at 12 °C, walls that sweat. Lunch in a troglodyte restaurant near Turquant: fouées, small breads from a wood oven in the rock, split and filled with rillettes, goat’s cheese and mogettes, with a chilled Saumur-Champigny. At 16:00, in Chacé, the flight I built the day around. Clos Rougeard, the Foucault family’s for eight generations until 2017, treats Cabernet Franc like a Burgundy grand cru: old vines, two years in barrel, more in bottle before release. The estate does not receive visitors, so the bottles come to us: Le Clos, floral and spiced; Les Poyeux, from three hectares of clay and blown sand, finer; Brézé, Chenin from the limestone hill, saline. Dinner in Saumur with the town’s own traditional-method sparkling.

Day 5: Thouarcé and Savennières, the natural Anjou#

Bags at 09:00. West of Saumur the limestone ends, the schist of the Massif Armoricain begins, and Chenin changes with it. Forty minutes south-west at Thouarcé, in the Coteaux du Layon, Mark Angeli bought La Ferme de la Sansonnière in 1989: 7.8 hectares, biodynamic across the farm by 1993, early for Anjou; his son Martial has co-signed the wines since 2021. We walk the parcel documented since the 15th century, then taste from old barrels: La Lune, wax, quince and salt, little or no sulfur, sold as Vin de France by choice; the Rosé d’un Jour, off-dry and low in alcohol. Lunch nearby. At 15:30, 45 minutes north at Savennières, Thibaud Boudignon planted the Clos de la Hutte on schist in 2011 from a massal selection of Chenin. We walk the slate, then taste: dry, tight, near austere, Burgundian cellar discipline on Anjou’s natural-camp soil. Night in Angers, 15 kilometres east; farewell dinner with one bottle per house of the week.

Day 6: Angers to Paris#

Breakfast in Angers, bags to the station, then a free morning: the château with its 14th-century Apocalypse, a hundred metres of woven cloth, or a last caviste for the bottles the estates would not ship. The TGV leaves Angers Saint-Laud around 12:30 and reaches Paris Montparnasse in 1 h 30 min, in time for evening flights from Orly or Charles de Gaulle. Chenin travels well: a Vouvray moelleux will outlive most of us, and none of it minds a cold hold. Lunch is on your own, on the train or in Paris.

Who this tour is for#

For people who know Chenin can be dry and want to taste why some years the sugar stays; for Cabernet Franc drinkers who know it only from Bordeaux blends; and for anyone curious about the natural scene without wanting a week of only that. Huet, the Taille aux Loups and Clos Rougeard are classic cellars on organic or biodynamic vines; Angeli is a natural pioneer; Boudignon sits between. I pour them in that order so the argument builds itself; my note on what I pour and why sets it up. If the Chauvet school is your subject, the Jura and Beaujolais week with Lapierre’s cellar in Morgon is the natural route; for Pinot, Chardonnay and chalk, Burgundy and Champagne with Larmandier-Bernier at Vertus. Any of it runs as a private tour for two to twelve, with your own cellar list. Vegetarians eat well here: goat’s cheeses, fouées, asparagus in May, and Chenin does not care what is on the plate.

Practical notes#

Flights: Vienna and Prague fly to Paris in about two hours; arrive the evening before and I will suggest a hotel near Montparnasse. Weather: May and June run 18 to 24 °C with Atlantic showers in Anjou; late September is harvest, cooler, and some growers will be picking while we visit. February means La Dive Bouteille, the natural wine fair founded in 1999, now held in the Ackerman tuffeau cellars in Saumur: professionals only, with satellite tastings across Angers and Saumur the same weekend. I run that date as a private departure for trade guests, on request; hotels book out months ahead. Pack a waterproof, shoes for schist and cellar steps, a layer for 12 °C underground. Mobility: cellar steps everywhere; the day 5 walk can be skipped. Cards work almost everywhere; the smallest cellars prefer cash, and some sell nothing at the door. Village shops close 12:00 to 14:00. The FAQ covers single rooms and dietary needs; my note on visiting a winemaker explains why we arrive on time and spit more than we would like.