Loire Reds Like it Hot: Cabernet-Franc in Touraine Benefits from Climate Change, Producing Lusty, Bold-Flavored Wines. A Baker’s Dozen for $397.

Grape vines are the canary in the coal mine. Particularly sensitive to temperature and rainfall flux—hence the clichéd ‘good vintage’ vs. ‘poor vintage’—vines are among the most effective agricultural tools we have to gauge the effect that climate change is having on cash crops. So central is the subject of climate change to wine discussions in the 21st century that it becomes a frequent theme in any overview of wine country, and one we return to with both concern and concession.

In the Loire, successive heat waves drove record temperatures in 2018 and 2019, only to have them surpassed in 2022. It led to a massive drought that left parts of the Loire River crossable by foot. And yet, in the midst of these disasters, Cabernet Franc is sitting pretty, especially in Touraine, where the extra shot of warmth is welcome. Cab Franc is a naturally late-ripening variety that in cooler years can produce vegetal flavors that (in tasting notes) often translate into ‘green pepper’. Longer hang times in a warmer season eliminates this weediness, and when ripened optimally, becomes a force to be reckoned with, especially in Chinon, Bourgueil, Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny. These appellations have begun to consistently produce wines that display a classically ethereal interplay of fruit, minerals and herbs.

Cab Franc has an additional advantage when grown in regions with somewhat unstable weather patterns, where hot and dry vintages can be followed by one that is cool and wet. Suited to either eventuality, Cabernet Franc is resilience against the heat as well as to cool wet weather, effectively resisting botrytis.

This week, we’ll take a tour of Touraine and some satellite regions and measure the pinnacles being reached by this particular variety as well as consider the types of vigneron who call this dynamic region home.

Touraine: A Multitude of Soils and Grape Varieties

The vineyards of Touraine grow at the crossroads of oceanic and continental influences, and likewise, the soils are as varied as the breezes, being predominantly limestone, sand and siliceous clay from the Paris Basin, while the terraces bordering the Loire and the Vienne contain deposits of pebbles smoothed to roundness by the action of the water. Such variety supports a cornucopia of grape varieties and multifarious styles—easy-drinking white, red and rosés and sparkling wines along with sweet wines that will bend your mind as they crumble your molars. Whether red, white or shades between, Touraine wines are always vibrant with acidity and delicate, precise flavors.

Red wine is produced from Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Côt, Pinot Noir, Meunier, Pineau d’Aunis and Gamay grape varieties and tend to be firm and fruity.

Climate Change Challenges Winemakers, But Some are Benefitting from It

Late frosts, hailstorms, repeated heatwaves and historic droughts—the plagues of winemakers in 2024 make the plagues of Egypt look like a kindergartner’s runny nose. There is adaptability and there is impossibility, and these challenges have caused winemakers not only to re-evaluate their techniques, from trellising to site selection, but to revamp the entire industry.

“The nature of the French wine industry is going to be completely different by 2050,” says Nathalie Ollat, an expert on winegrowing at French agricultural research institute INRAE. “And the precise nature of that change will be determined in part by the results of the experiments going on throughout the country. We could have irrigated vineyards in the south, others that have disappeared, as well as long-forgotten grape varieties brought back. Perhaps certain regions will go from using one variety of grape to several varieties. And maybe we’ll have entirely new vineyards in entirely new places on top of that.”

Meanwhile, despite the numerous negative impacts of climate change, warmer temperatures have proven advantageous for some French winemakers. Along with a vineyard’s soil and the expertise of its agronomist and winemaker, heat and rainfall are crucial to the final product. Warmer days help grapes mature properly and develop an optimal amount of sugar, resulting in higher-scoring wine. While critic opinions are subjective, there has been a consensus in these scores over the years, and top wines tend to come from years with warmer, drier summers, cooler, wetter winters, and earlier, shorter growing seasons—conditions that climate change is expected to make more frequent.

The Loire’s Cabernet Franc Enters a New Era.

Who’s your daddy? Biologically, both Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot share Cabernet Franc as a parent, and the grape itself displays characteristics inherited by both. In cooler climates, Cabernet Franc shows off graphite and red licorice notes, while in warm regions, it exhibits tobacco and leather aromas. There is also a vegetal edge, which may strike the palate as tasting of green pepper or jalapeño.

In Bordeaux, it is generally a minor component of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends, although in Pomerol and Saint-Émilion it adopts a larger, more highly-regarded role. Cheval Blanc, for example, is typically around two-thirds Cabernet Franc while Ausone is an even split between Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

With the Loire Valley’s cool, inland climates it becomes a star performer. The appellations of Chinon, Bourgueil and Saint–Nicholas-de-Bourgueil (in Touraine) along with Saumur and Saumur-Champigny (in Anjou) are important bastions of Cabernet Franc, where the wine is prized for forward aromas of ripe summer berries and sweet spices.

Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil

Although technically a part of the Touraine district (which is defined by the political boundaries of the city of Tours) Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil are so different from their neighbors that they are often grouped together with Chinon as a separate unit.

Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil produces mostly red wines (one of only very few Loire appellations to do so) and a small quantity of rosé; both are characterized by crisp, refreshing acidity and prominent spiced-fruit flavors. They are made almost entirely from Cabernet Franc, although up to 10% Cabernet Sauvignon is allowed, which has also responded particularly well to the milder, maritime-influenced climate and free draining soils.

Sébastien David
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil

No comment on E.F. Hutton, but when Sébastien David speaks, you should probably listen. He is the fifteenth-generation to make wine in an estate that dates back to 1634. And when he speaks, he says, “I believe in the energy of the land.”

The family owns 37 acres of Cabernet Franc in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, with the vines aged 35-100 years old. Sébastien heed the call of the land’s energy after his grandfather died in the late 1990s—Sébastien’s first vintage was 1999, and has since focused on producing natural wines from fruit that is Ecocert certified.

Sébastien David

“My insistence has been to listen to the soil,” he says. “We are organic, biodynamic and are currently exploring permaculture, where grass grows between rows. In the cellar I use concrete eggs as well as amphorae. The pH here in Saint-Nicolas is higher due to more sand in the soil and the concrete allows me to accentuate the more floral notes of Cabernet Franc rather than the green pepper notes you might get from a Chinon.”

 1  Sébastien David ‘Hurluberlu’, 2022 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($26)
Working with whole clusters, David ferments ‘Hurluberlu’ on wild yeasts, employing carbonic maceration for 25 days followed by a light pressing to preserve the fruit’s freshness, and to create a wine that is as animated as its name, resplendent with sizzling cherry, bright raspberry and tart cranberry that deserves to be served slightly chilled.

 2  Sébastien David ‘Kezako’, 2020 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($34)
Kezako, created with many of the same techniques as Hurluberlu, is the spicier, more herbal sister wine. The emphasis here is on the earthier tones of Cabernet Franc; the fruit is darker, too, showing blackberry and plum rather than the red starbursts of Hurluberlu. This is primarily the result of a blend of eight plot of David’s oldest vines grown on flinty silex. Kezako means ‘What is it?’ and is David’s only cuvée vinified in concrete eggs.

 3  Sébastien David ‘Coëf’, 2019 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($47)
If you happen to be an amphorae scholar, you’ll be pleased to note that ‘Coëf’ is aged in five different types—Quevri from Georgia, Dolia from Italy, Karaf from Armenia, Thalia from Portugal and Tinajas from Spain. If you are simply a wine lover, you’ll appreciate David’s quote: “… more than the wine, there is the person who shapes it, works it, softens it with the respect of an art, of an ancestral technique that my ancestors have bequeathed to me.”

Made from 50 year old vines, vinified using carbonic maceration, the wine shows cherry, violet, and a hint of spice.

Yannick Amirault
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Bourgueil

‘Fifty and out’ could be the mission statement of Domaine Y. Amirault, at least in terms of size. With around 30 acres in Bourgueil and 20 in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Yannick Amirault has grown his vineyard space as large as he cares to, finding 50 acres to be the most he feels he can work to his exacting standards.

Having begun in 1977 with around ten acres inherited from his grandfather, Eugène Amirault, he was joined by his son Benoît in 2003. Yannick’s commitment to organic agriculture is not an attempt to hop on the bandwagon sweeping across French viticulture, but rather the opposite: “Weaning the vineyards off synthetic inputs—a process we completed in 1997—and following lunar calendar—may seem a bit trendy, but this is simply a return to the way Eugène Amirault made wine for his family.”

Yannick and Benoît Amirault

Benoît adds: “Harvest has always been done by hand and is initiated by many factors, all guided by combined experience. Each parcel is picked at its own optimal ripeness (and in several passes), then the grape clusters are transported to the cellar. Here, the work is both minimalistic and transparent: Grapes are sorted again and destemmed; fermentations are indigenous and conducted in large, open-topped, conical oak vats; macerations last up to sixty days with pigeage only at the very beginning and rémontage reserved only for the ripest vintages to reduce rustic tannins. Only the first press is used and is aged in neutral vessels—amphorae, oak demi-muids and well-seasoned vats.”

The result of this is a vibrant array of 100% Cabernet Franc wines, many reflecting individual plots across the two appellations; the domain has 25, some above the village on sands and gravels, others at the hill’s feet, in limestone.

“There is no terroir without the intervention of mankind,” says Yannick. “We look after our vines, year after year, as if it were a garden. We grow grass between vine rows and we plough the graveled plots which are more sensitive to a lack of water. Despite weather, our craft leaves nothing to chance. The pruning is Guyot Poussard and vines through organic spraying of plants infusion. We also roll growing vines (we do not cut the top branches) on certain crus. Even in a low yield year, we do a growth clearing on all our vines in order to ensure an homogenous maturity of the grapes.”

 4  Yannick Amirault ‘Les Malgagnes’, 2020 Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil ($42)
Les Malgagnes is a hillside lieu-dit in the Bourgueil sub-appellation of Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil. It is slightly further down the limestone-rich slope than the other three lieux-dits on this particular côte. Amirault has six acres here, but only the fruit from the upper section, where the limestone is much closer to the surface, is used for this cuvée. The grapes see a four-week maceration with an élevage lasting 12 months in large barrels and demonstrate the silky elegance of old-vine Cabernet Franc grown in this pretty AOP; rich cassis notes are woven into fine-grained tannins and bittersweet chocolate on the finish.

Bourgueil

As Loire is known affectionately as ‘the garden of France’, Bourgueil has been christened ‘the birthplace of Cabernet Franc’, which has been cultivated at the Abbey de Bourgueil since it was built on the Roman main road from Angers to Tours. Today, the appellation covers seven communes in the Indre-et-Loire along the right bank of the Loire, where it enjoys a remarkable microclimate due to the heavy forests that protects the vineyards from the north wind. Soil also cooperates; there are three distinct types: The islets of gravel in the alluvial terraces of the Loire on higher terraces, ancient, glaciated sand and clay/limestone soils from the ridge running along the north of the appellation.

Soils rich in the local ‘tuffeau jaune’ stone type produce richer, spicier wines with ‘animal’ aromas such as leather and fur. Tuffeau is a yellowish, fragile, sedimentary rock formed during the Turonian era (in fact, named after Touraine) roughly 90 million years ago. A combination of sand and marine fossils, the rock is extremely porous, absorbing water rapidly and disseminating it slowly. These qualities are ideal for viticulture as they draw excess water away from vine roots and hold reserves that stop the vines from shutting down entirely during drier periods.

5  Yannick Amirault ‘Le Grand Clos’, 2020 Bourgueil ($37)
Amirault owns five acres of the lauded, south-facing hillside Le Grand Clos lieu-dit, which is composed of clay and flint soils over tuffeau bedrock. Certified organic, his vines are 45 years old. The grapes are hand-harvested in successive passes, destemmed and allowed natural yeast fermentation in oak vats, and after four weeks of maceration, the wine is transferred to 400-liter French oak barrels for a minimum of one year. The wine is an earthy, black-fruit driven Cabernet Franc that shows the pencil-shavings graphite that are typical of the appellation, one of the few in Loire appellations to produce exclusively red wines.

Pierre Borel
Bourgueil

The six-acre Clos du Pavée, where Pierre Borel has been making wine since 2006, is a true clos in the French sense, meaning that it a walled vineyard, once done to protect the grapes from theft and now, to improve the mesoclimate. Pavée soils are gravel; the surrounding acres are generally built around clay/limestone.

“Terror dictates wine style,” Pierre explains, “and this terroir I believe is meant to produce more easygoing, fruit-forward wines.”

This concept ultimately led Pierre to uproot and replant the whole parcel, settling on four new acres of Cabernet Franc and two of Chenin Blanc. Doing all the vineyard work alone (and by hand) Pierre is a firm believer in organic viticulture, and although he doesn’t believe that the AOP system is necessarily a mark of quality, he views working within it a commitment to the winemaking traditions in the area.

Pierre Borel

The seclusion of Clos du Pavée works to the advantage of Pierre’s passion for organics. With the village on one side and woodland on the other, his acres are under very little threat from contamination from neighboring growers who aren’t playing by his rules. He believes that his wines represent the purity and typicity of wines from Bourgueil—and that is his goal.

“Simplicity is key,” he states. “I make only one wine, and vinify in as straightforward a way as possible. I work with sandy limestone/gravel soils that yields plush, herbaceous and fragrant fruit. I ferment in a simple chai that contains one large tank of stainless steel and one of fiberglass. The wine is racked off the skins after a couple of weeks of maceration and is bottled from tank, with no barrel aging.”

He is also pleased to note that as his new vines mature, they are producing more complex and nuanced wine with each passing vintage.

 6  Pierre Borel ‘Clos de Pavée’ 2019 Bourgueil ‘natural’ ($33)
Bourgueil is the heartland of Cabernet Franc in the Touraine district, and Borel’s five gravelly acres in Clos de Pavée are the epicenter of Bourgueil. This savory, natural red is replete with the meatiness that develops in Cab Franc under ideal condition, and here it is offset by crunchy cranberry and rich herbaceous notes. There is dark chocolate on the finish now, but the wine is structured to mature for at least another decade, and should develop the truffle-like savory tones.

Chinon

Playwright Francois Rabelais (a Chinon local boy made good) wrote, “”I know where Chinon lies, and the painted wine cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glass of cool wine.” That wine was likely red: though capable of producing wines of all hues, Chinon’s focus is predominantly red; last year, white and rosé wines accounted for less than five percent of its total output. Cab Franc is king, and 95% of the vineyards are thus planted. Rabelais’ true stage was set 90 million years ago, when the yellow sedimentary tuffeau, characteristic of the region, was formed. This rock is a combination of sand and fossilized zooplankton; it absorbs water quickly and releases it slowly—an ideal situation for deeply-rooted vines. The typical, quintessential Chinon wine is tannic, leafy, berry-scented.

Château de la Bonnelière
Chinon

Although in his father’s time the family had just 15 acres, Marc Plouzeau now cultivates nearly eighty spread across several vineyards. The vast majority are planted to Cabernet Franc, and the rest are planted mainly to Sauvignon Blanc with a little Chenin making up the balance. They spread over three main soil types—the lightest are the gravelly alluvial soils close to the waters of the river, including a large parcel on the western side of the appellation called Les Buissardières and located near Château Vaugaudry.

Marc Plouzeau, Château de la Bonnelière

Marc Plouzeau is a dedicated vigneron who has transformed the family business, shifting away from his father’s focus on a négociant business, and towards the running of Château de la Bonnelière as a self-sufficient domain. In tandem with this, indeed beginning as soon as he took on the responsibility for the vineyards, he has converted it to certified organic viticulture. This gives the entire estate a rural and isolated feel. Located in La-Roche-Clermault and set well bank from the waters of the Vienne, most of its notable neighbors are situated located much closer to the riverbanks in the communes of Ligré, Anché and Sazilly.

 7  Château de la Bonnelière ‘M Plouzeau – Rive Gauche’, 2022 Chinon ($19)
100% Cabernet Franc from 30-year old vines grown on clay-limestone soils on south-facing hillsides. Following natural fermentation on indigenous yeasts, the wine undergoes malolactic and is bottled with minimal filtration. It is soft and silky and supple with an expressive bouquet of dark berries and violets followed by bright cherry; the wine is best appreciated with a slight chill.

 8  Château de la Bonnelière ‘M Plouzeau – Rive Gauche’, 2023 Chinon Rosé ($19)
‘Rive Gauche’ translates literally as ‘Left Bank’, and here, of course, refers not to the Seine in Paris but to the Vienne in Loire. Château de la Bonnelière has been in the Plouzeau family since 1846; Marc Plouzeau took over in 1988 with a game plan that included lowering yields and hand-harvesting at ideal physiological ripeness. His vinification philosophy emphasizes fruit rather than tannins—ideal for the production of rosé. Likewise, the estate’s Argilo-Calcalre soil, with sun-reflecting flint on the surface and plenty of limestone underneath, produces wines of great complexity. Plouzeau refers to his terroir as ‘privileged.’ His rosé is a crunchy delight, with watermelon and strawberry notes and great overall depth bringing out elements of cantaloupe, ripe red pepper and a beguiling black cherry undercurrent that adds weight and complexity.

Domaine Olga Raffault
Chinon

Savigny-en-Véron is a beautiful pocket of Chinon vineland nestled between the Loire and the Vienne, and this is where Olga Raffault tended her sixty acres of vines, nearly all Cabernet Franc, with a couple acres of Chenin to round things off. Her Cabernet vines are spread over three terroirs, each of which produces a unique wine profile. Of these, Les Picasses stands out for its fifty year old vines grown on a steep slope built on alluvial clay with a chalk limestone base.

Arnaud and Eric de la Vigerie, and Sylvie Raffault, Domaine Olga Raffault

Since Olga’s passing, the baton has passed to her granddaughter Sylvie and Sylvie’s husband Eric de la Vigerie. They want it known that their beloved Olga never made the wine, and that the winemaking tradition has remained unchanged. Says Sylvie, “The grapes are, of course, handpicked and fermented in stainless-steel, then aged in larger, neutral oak and sometimes chestnut—a traditional wood barrel of this region.”

Eric adds, “Picasses spends two to three years in oak to reduce the wine and soften the tannins and is usually released about four years after the vintage.”

 9  Domaine Olga Raffault ‘La Fraîch’, 2023 Chinon ($24)
Introduced in 2017, La Fraîch is sourced from young vines planted on sandy soils near the Vienne River. It is intended to be a ‘vin de soif’ without compromising quality or integrity. The fruit is destemmed before fermenting in stainless steel tanks, and after six months, the wine is bottled and ready for release. It is refreshingly simple, with green herbs behind black cherry and black raspberry.

 10  Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Barnabés’, 2021 Chinon ($27)
Les Barnabés is a vineyard planted on sandy-gravel soils with less limestone than Les Picasses, and the wine spends less time in foudre before release. The grapes are crushed whole-cluster in vats, where they remain for two weeks before being transferred to 50-hectoliter casks to spend four to six months. The cuvée is intended to reflect the pretty and elegant side of Chinon, approachable in youth, but eminently ageable.

 11  Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Peuilles’, 2020 Chinon ($30)
Like the more renowned Les Picasses vineyard, Les Peuilles is a lieu-dit near the village of Beaumont-En-Véron, to the south of town and closer to the Vienne river. It is a plateau rather than a hillside and features soils of clay and flint rather than limestone. The fruit is whole-berry fermented on indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, with a shorter maceration compared to that of Picasses. Aging takes place in 70-hectoliter oak and chestnut foudres for 6-12 months, with another year or two in bottle before release.

 12  Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Picasses’, 2018 Chinon ($35)
Les Picasses is the most famous Chinon lieu-dit, close to the village of Beaumont-En-Véron on the north bank of the Vienne River. It is a slope with southern exposure and chalky clay-limestone soils. Raffault’s mid-slope vines are at least 50 years old and are worked organically and harvested by hand. The fruit is destemmed with the berries left whole; they are fermented with indigenous yeasts in tank with a maceration of 25-30 days. The wine is aged for one to two years in 30-hectoliter oak and chestnut foudres, then aged in bottle for several years before release. The wine shows complex blend of cassis, cigar wrapper, soil tones and a touch of smoke, and will probably continue to age well for at least another five years.

 13  Domaine Olga Raffault, 2023 Chinon Rosé ($24)
100% organically-grown Cabernet Franc rosé produced in the saignée method. It ferments spontaneously on ambient yeasts in stainless steel tanks and does not undergo malolactic fermentation. Aged in tanks and bottled with only light filtration, this is a full-bodied rosé showing notes of papaya and red berries mingle with hints of crushed herbs and granite minerality.

Notebook …

The Gesture of Natural: Wine in the Raw

In wine, ‘natural’ is a concept before it’s a style. It refers to a philosophy; an attitude. It may involve a regimen of rituals or it may be as simple as a gesture, but the goal, in nearly every case, is the purest expression of fruit that a winemaker, working within a given vineyard, can fashion. Not all ‘natural’ wines are created equal, and some are clearly better than others, but of course, neither is every estate the same, nor every soil type, nor each individual vigneron’s ideology.

The theory is sound: To reveal the most honest nuances in a grape’s nature, especially when reared in a specific environment, the less intervention used, the better. If flaws arise in the final product—off-flavors, rogue, or ‘stuck’ fermentation (when nature takes its course), it may often be laid at the door of inexperience. Natural wine purists often claim that this technique is ancient and that making wine without preservatives is the historical precedent. That’s not entirely true, of course; using sulfites to kill bacteria or errant yeast strains dates to the 8th century BCE. What is fact, however, is that some ‘natural’ wines are wonderful and others are not, and that the most successful arise from an overall organoleptic perspective may be those better called ‘low-intervention’ wine, or ‘raw’ wine—terminology now adopted by many vignerons and sommeliers.

At its most dogmatic and (arguably) most OCD, natural wines come from vineyards not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, where the grapes are picked by hand and fermented with native yeast; they are fined via gravity and use no additives to preserve or shore up flavor, including sugar and sulfites. Winemakers who prefer to eliminate the very real risk of contaminating an entire harvest may use small amounts of sulfites to preserve and stabilize (10 to 35 parts per million) and in natural wine circles, this is generally considered an acceptable amount, especially if the estate maintains a biodynamic approach to vineyard management.

In all things wine, ‘balance’ is a key to the kingdom; it is a term interchangeable with harmony, and may reference acid, alcohol level, grape sugars and tannin, but also, to a scale in which the long-term health of the product is considered along with the flavors inherent on release. More than just a current radar blip in trendy social cap.

Vin-de-France (VdF) Catch-all Designation: Forgoing Appellation Rules

Wines in France are classified into one of three categories: AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protegée, formerly AOC), IGP (formerly Vin de Pays) and Vin de France (VdF). AOP wines are identified only by the names of their appellations, usually without varietal descriptions; the next level, IGP, comes from broader regions, and may be identified by varietal names; and the lowest level has no indication of origin at all.

Vin de France (VdF) is a catch-all. Produced often at high yields, most Vins de France are low-priced, but hidden within them are top wines, pushed out of the appellation system, that can be every bit as good as the best in the AOP. They can be hard to identify, because origins aren’t obvious – many indicate only the names of producer and cuvée – and while they may seem expensive for this lowly category, they can offer remarkable interest. With only a few high-flying Vins de France, this is a small class, but it’s well worth investigating.

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Posted on 2024.08.08 in Bourgueil, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Chinon, Touraine, France, Wine-Aid Packages