Montlouis

Montlouis or Mountlouis-sur-Loire, overshadowed white wine appellation in the touraine district of the Loire that exists across the river from the much larger and more famous vouvray, although it has its own characteristics. As in Vouvray, the chenin blanc grape is grown exclusively for Montlouis, which is made in all degrees of sweetness and fizziness, according to each vintage’s peculiarities. An increasing proportion of still wine is bone dry and aged in oak.

Although tuffeau also forms a base from which many a house and cellar is hewn, topsoils here on the south bank just downstream of Touraine-Amboise are lighter and sandier than in Vouvray, and the wines are less sharply defined, tending to mature considerably earlier (which can be a great advantage). About a third of the wine produced from Montlouis’s 400 ha/1,000 acres of Chenin Blanc is the usefully sturdy and characterful Montlouis Mousseux, or Montlouis Pétillant Naturel, the first aoc for a gently sparkling, fruity pétillant naturel wine made by the méthode ancestrale.