WINE & SPIRITS 
Loire wines: So much to love
By Patrick Comiskey, Special to The Times
August 23, 2006 
WHEN sommeliers speak of wines from the Loire Valley, a funny thing happens to their tone of voice. It gets softer, more tender, as if they're not talking about wine anymore, but maybe showing you pictures of their children.

"I love each one of them for slightly different reasons," says Lou Amdur of Lou, the wine bar on Vine Street.

"They're my little wines," says Shawn Mead, former wine director at Campagne in Seattle. "I love their immediacy, their complete lack of airs; it's not that they lack complexity, but there's less of a sense of seriousness that surrounds them. It's more liberating than drinking a Bordeaux and all that formality."

Perhaps that's why all bistro, bar and cafe chalkboards in Paris list Loire Valley wines in overwhelming numbers. Racy Muscadets, Sancerres, Pouilly-Fumés, rich Vouvrays, earthy Chinons — they're the everyday wines of France. Not, typically, trophies nor wines to contemplate or brood over, they're part of the fabric of daily life.

"Loire wines feel familiar, like going back to your favorite old neighborhood," says Wilshire restaurant's wine director Matt Straus. "They're one of the last great bastions of affordable Old-World quality."

Partly this is because in a single valley you have an unparalleled spectrum of flavors and textures, nearly the complete palette of all that wine can produce, from bright, clean and green to deep, dark and concentrated.

But the real reason that Paris and nearly every sommelier in town loves the Loire is because these wines are tailor-made to pair with food. And their lightness of touch, their modest alcohols and gentle tannins make them ideal wines for summer meals.

The valley forged by the Loire — France's largest river — covers a swath from the Massif Central (an elevated volcanic shelf that pretty much comprises Central France) south of Paris to the sea, coursing across a vast array of French geology, through marine sediments, alluviums, slates, schists, sands, sandstones, river stones, limestone, tufa, and combinations therein.

The geological wonderland quality of the place amounts to an important calling card for Loire wines in general: their minerality. Whether it's a bracing Muscadet white from the coast or a smoky Chinon red from the Touraine, all possess an impressive mineral backbone.

Whites dominate the wines of the Loire, and a great majority come from vineyards in and around the city of Nantes, near the country's western shores. These are planted to a grape called Melon de Bourgogne — a variety that bears some resemblance to Pinot Blanc and Sauvignon — and made into Muscadet. These inexpensive, bracing whites are known for their minerality, acidity and nerve, as well as a clean, arresting neutrality, serving as a lens for the food one pairs it with — which more often than not is seafood.

The best Muscadet comes from an appellation called Sèvre et Maine, where the slightly warmer inland climate makes for a more characterful wine. Muscadet has long been considered the ideal pairing with oysters precisely because both the food and the wine share a subtle saline, limey quality — the same could be said for roast clams, and even a mild ceviche.

Most Muscadet imported to this country is simple and delicious, and a few domaines, like Joseph Landron's Domaine de la Louvetrie and Marc Ollivier's Domaine de la Pepière, have especially pristine renderings from old, organically tended vines.

Charms of Loire wines

THE Loire wines best known in this country are made with Sauvignon Blanc, namely Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé. These two appellations produce Sauvignons of extraordinary vitality, and lately, with a string of warm vintages, an additional starburst of fruit that adds to their charms.

Sancerres and Pouilly-Fumés are grown on subtly different soils, leading to subtly different shades of vibrancy. Sancerre is a village surrounded by soils high in limestone and giving off a chalky minerality (the reds from Sancerre, made from Pinot Noir and well worth seeking out, have a similar edge). Pouilly-Fumé is just across the river near the village of Pouilly-sur-Loire, where the soils are additionally flecked with flint, which tends to impart a slatey, slightly smoky perfume — hence the term fumé. 

Pouilly is home to one of the Loire's best-known winemakers, Didier Dagueneau. His basic cuvée, called "En Chailloux," is classic Pouilly, but wines like his stylish "Silex" add barrel fermentation and a creamy oak note.

Sancerre tends to be more popular, usually unadorned by oak, and more reasonably priced. Look for classics, like those of Lucien Crochet, Sylvain Bailly and Paul Cotat. Recently I came upon a stunningly vibrant 2005 by a producer named Paul Thomas, from Chavignol. Pairing it with the goat cheeses from that village would work wonderfully, as would matching it with California offerings such as Laura Chenel or Humboldt Fog. Sancerre's rippling natural acidity cuts right through the chalky richness of the cheese, cleaning the palate for the next bite.

Where Muscadet may be thought of as one well-played note in the key of shellfish, Sauvignons can enliven nearly any seafood dish they come near. In Paris bistros they typically accompany poached fish dishes like quenelles de brochet — pike, poached in cream and white wine. In Los Angeles, it can work with just about any seafood, from prawns and scallops to any meaty grilled fish, especially when it's adorned with light, fresh herbs such as chervil and tarragon.

The Loire Valley's Chenin Blanc is a grape that's grown almost nowhere else in France and is unquestionably one of the country's most overlooked varieties. Few wines are as complex or long-lived, and only Riesling shares its capacity for transparency, complexity and chameleonic variation.

Dry Chenins display razor-sharp acids; riper versions are among the richest, most unctuous and sumptuous wines you'll ever put in your mouth. They also age remarkably; currently, Wilshire's Straus is pouring a 1994 Chenin from Roches aux Moines in Savennières that's as fresh and summery at 12 years of age as most whites are at 12 months.