Touraine, the most important Loire region centred on the town of Tours (see map under loire). This is ‘the garden of France’, and Loire château country par excellence, a series of playgrounds for France’s pre-revolutionary aristocrats, and now the Parisian weekender’s rural paradise. The local tuffeau was quarried extensively to build these and more distant châteaux, leaving caves ideal for winemaking and wine maturation.
Touraine’s most famous wines are the still red wines from the individual appellations of bourgueil, chinon, and St-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil and its still and sparkling, dry to sweet whites from vouvray and montlouis.
