Aubance, Coteaux de l’, small (barely 200 ha/500 acres) but sometimes excellent sweet white wine appellation in anjou on the left bank of the River Loire just south of the town of Angers and immediately north of Coteaux du layon. It takes its name from the Aubance, a tributary of the Loire. Total production is rather more than that of savennières across the river to the west, but the best results come from Chenin planted on outcrops of heat-retaining slate. The standard of winemaking is high, and a high proportion of the racy, sweet white Chenin Blanc wines made here is snapped up locally or in Paris. Red and dry white Anjou make up the bulk of production in this zone, with some red Anjou Villages Brissac, but in exceptional years Coteaux de l’Aubance can be just as noble, if not always as long-lived, as the Loire’s more famous sweet whites, and must owe their sweetness to a succession of tries through the vineyard, picking only the ripest grapes, a discipline, unusually, overseen by the inao. According to the vintage, the wines may be botrytized, and may carry the term Sélection de Grains Nobles on the label, or the grapes may be partly raisined on the vine. See also loire, including map.
