Which Side of the Staircase?

As our boat drifted down the Loire on a summer evening, a winemaker pointed to a flight of old stone steps on the riverbank. They were divided neatly down the middle, and he joked that one side was for the people of Saumur and the other for Touraine. Everyone laughed, but the line was clear in every winemaker’s mind, and it’s a good place to start if you want to understand the knotty idea of terroir.

Where Saumur ends and Touraine begins

Those lines aren’t fixed. The winemakers told us climate change is already making their wines riper and changing their style, and appellation boundaries have been redrawn before, as the short-lived Chaume AOC showed. Terroir can be malleable, even political.

Wines for thirst, wines for thought

In Tasting French Terroir: The History of an Idea, Thomas Parker traces how the French came to taste the “personality” of a region in its food and wine, an idea that took shape during the Renaissance. The writer Rabelais divided wine into two kinds, wines for thirst and wines worth contemplating, and Saumur-Champigny makes both.

There’s the light, gluggable red that fills Paris bistros, and there’s the serious, age-worthy Cabernet Franc from independent growers, who draw depth and elegance from the region’s tuffeau, limestone and clay soils.

We were here for the second kind, tasting blind in the vineyards and learning the producers’ names only at the end of the day.

1. Saint-Cyr-en-Bourg

On the south-facing Butte de Saint-Cyr, at 65 metres, the vines grow in shallow sand and chalky tuffeau, which moderates both temperature and water supply. The wines are light and lively, with fresh raspberry fruit and a mouth-watering minerality.

Standouts: 2014 Domaine de la Guilloterie Tradition, 2014 Cave de Saumur Lieu-dit Les Villaises

2. Les Poyeux

This is home to Clos Rougeard’s Les Poyeux, one of the region’s most celebrated wines, from a parcel the family has farmed since 1664. Slightly higher than Saint-Cyr but with little breeze, its chalky soils trap the heat and keep the vines warm at night. The wines here have depth of fruit, silkiness and a lovely roundness, becoming finer with just a few years in bottle.

Standouts: 2011 Domaine La Bonnelière Cuvée Les Poyeux, 2014 Domaine de la Cune Les 3 Jean, 2010 Clotilde et René-Noël Legrand La Chaintrée, 2014 Les Clos Maurice Le Clos de Midi

3. Souzay-Champigny and Parnay

Our final stop was the most unusual vineyard I’ve ever seen. At Clos d’Entre les Murs on the Château de Parnay estate, the vines are planted on the shady north side of a long stone wall, then threaded through it so their leaves and fruit ripen in the sun on the south side. The Cabernet Francs from around here have the most body of the three, rich and velvety.

Standouts: 2014 Domaine de Rocheville Page, 2014 Domaine Filliatreau La Grande Vignolle

Final thoughts

Raspberry brightness in Saint-Cyr, silkiness in Les Poyeux and richness near Parnay show how much difference a few kilometres can make. And standing beside that wall at Parnay, with vines pushed through the stone towards the sun, I realised terroir is shaped by people as much as by place, which is perhaps why everyone on that boat knew exactly which side of the staircase was theirs.

Thank you to the winemakers and InterLoire for the visit during Les Grandes Tablées du Saumur-Champigny.