Exploring the land of Loire

If you want to break away from the supermarket and explore some good wine without breaking the bank or having to wait decades for it to mature, which regions could you look at? Two spring to mind. One is South Africa, which I’ll save for another time. The other is the Loire, in France. I’d be drinking very well over the winter if I had a bottle of fine wine for each time this autumn I’ve heard someone say that ‘the Loire now is like Burgundy used to be’.

What do they mean? That this is an unspoilt region with plenty of artisan and family winemakers, often farming small plots in a way that is unsparing in its attention to detail. That the wines have a sense of place. That the Loire has a few stellar and much-hyped producers, such as Clos Rougeard in Saumurchampigny (expect to pay £250+ for a bottle) and Richard Leroy, who makes dry chenin blanc in Anjou (averaging around £330), but you can still drink extremely well from the Loire for a pizza-out (smart wines) or pizza-in (supermarket wines) budget.

Look to independent merchants and you’ll find beautiful wines in the £15£25 range. For instance, Jean-claude et Didier Aubert Vouvray Sec 2021, France (13%; yapp.co.uk, £15.75), for an electric chenin blanc. Or Château de Plaisance ‘N’ Anjou Blanc 2021, France (13%; Lea & Sandeman, £23.50), for a chenin blanc that opens like a luminous and aromatic cloud, all quince and white flowers, then, after you sip, becomes more keen and more honed, an intense stream of citrus and unripe peach. I’d drink either of these as a refreshing apéro (they’ve got nice acidity), perhaps with fried or smoked fish.

If you’re after a red, I loved Domaine du Bel Air Jour de Soif 2019 Bourgueil, France (13%, Berry Bros & Rudd, £22.50). A vibrant cabernet franc from this organic producer, it possesses a juiciness that makes it feel brimming with crushed berries. If you’d like a pinot noir to drink with roast chicken or duck, then try Domaine Jean Teiller Rouge 2022 Menetou-salon, France (14%; yapp.co.uk, £20.45). And if you get a taste for this sort of thing, you might want to go further. It can be quite a treasure hunt to find some of the wines that are produced only in teeny quantities. They might appear on a website or shelf only for a few weeks before selling out, or they might only be offered to customers on the email database of the merchant who imports them.

‘We sell more and more Loire wines from small plots of land,’ says Siobhan Astbury over at Haynes, Hanson & Clark. ‘We buy, for instance, wines from the tiny family domaine of Jeanphilippe Agisson.’ Agisson is the former winemaker of Alphonse Mellot in Sancerre and now the winemaker for the late Didier Dagueneau’s legendary estate in Pouilly-fumé. ‘His La Belle Endormie made from a half-hectare parcel of vines in Pouilly-fumé is the kind of wine we’ll sell to Sketch [the three-michelin-starred London restaurant], it goes on the shelf – very briefly – of our London shop and we do a tiny offer for customers who like that sort of thing,’ says Astbury. For those of you looking to hoover up a bit of superb Loire value from the supermarket (and the Wine Society), I’ve got three more in my wines of the week. All are absolute belters.