Lorelei of the Loire

by CHARLES R. CODMAN

For many years consultant on mines to S.S. Pierce Co., CHARLES R. CODMAN knows the products of the European and California vineyards from direct experience matched by few other experts. This is Mr. Codman’s second article on French wines.

THE comments of most travelers to the wine regions of France follow a recognized pattern. First, the 21-gun salute to Dom Pérignon, the Châteaux of Bordeaux, and the historic vineyards of the Côte d’Or. Standard operating procedure then provides for a pat on the head for the Beaujolais, a ment for the scarcity of genuine Chablis, a deep curtsy to Château Chalon — a name irresistible to all wine-writers but to no one else other than the mountaineers of the Jura and the late Louis Pasteur — and finally a section on “Other French Wines.”

In this convenient if faintly derogatory catchall, the “other” vineyards are usually classified in terms of the three great rivers that water them, a sound enough approach but one which unfortunately has lent itself to the perpetuation of some highly dubious legends and to certain injustices.

Of the triumvirate, the Rhône need not detain us since the evaluation of its Hermitages, Côte-Rôtie, Châteaunen f-du-Pape, and even Tavel is generally thorough, accurate, and flattering. On the other hand, the French bank of the upper Rhine — that is, the Alsatian Haut-Rhin — is apt to receive considerably less than its just due. To those familiar with the great pre-war Hocks and Moselles of Germany, some of the claims made for Alsatian wines by the enterprising Chamber of Commerce of Colmar may seem to smack of vinous chauvinism, but it is a fact that many Alsatian proprietors before and since the war have transformed the Riesling and Traminer grapes of their spectacular terraced vineyards into wines which at their best are head and shoulders above the run-of-the-mill from the German side downstream.

However, it is not the majestic sweep of the Rhine but rather the swirling eddies and pebbly shoals of another stream whose siren song most frequently bemuses the senses of the wine-minded river sailor, even causing him at times to go completely overboard. I refer, of course, to the Loire. Whether the effect of sun, scenery, and those sight-seeing trips to the Châteaux of Touraine, combined with the vins du pays, induces a kind of mirage, I do not know, but certain it is that the tales of travelers returned from the salubrious provinces of central France almost invariably revolve around a central myth.

Thus we have the arrival at Tours.

The hired car, skiff, or bicycle. The pilgrimage to Blois and Chenonceaux. The dancing waters of the Loire. Troglodyte caves tucked under the smiling slopes.

The cool of evening after the thirst-ma king heat of day. Then, inevitably, that picturesque little inn somewhere this side of Amboise. The genial patron. The bottle pearling with cellar dew. The glass, two glasses, three glasses of Vouvray — the wine of wines — so gay, so charming, so spirituel, but utterly incapable, alas, of traveling more than a couple of hundred yards from its birthplace. And there you have it — the Vouvray myth.

Now it is quite true that many a Vouvray, which the visitor to Touraine finds so attractive, is too lightbodied, too low in tannin and alcoholic content, to survive an ocean voyage or even a trip to Paris. And speaking of Paris, it is also true that certain restaurants and bistros there have offered under the magic name of Vouvray nasty acid little brews whose inferior quality seemed to substantiate the thesis that I he wines of Touraine should remain at home.

With a view to taking issue with the legend of shut-in Vouvray, I fished up from the cellar a few weeks ago a bottle of Château Moncontour 1933. Moncontour is an excellent growth of Vouvray, and 1933 a good year, but I did not at this relatively late date have any great confidence in its powers of survival. The warmness of the evening seemed to call for a fairly long immersion in the ice bucket.

The cork when pulled was thoroughly dried out (not a propitious sign) and the color of the wine when poured — dark as a golden Sherry — indicated a sea change. The wine itself? Perfect. Rich, honeyed, sound as a nut.

Here then was a sixteen-year-old Vouvray which had traveled some three thousand miles, been stored in at least three different cellars under fair but by no means ideal conditions, and was nevertheless in perfect shape, and flowery to a degree unequaled by any Vouvray I ever consumed in situ.

An exception? No, plenty of other examples are at hand: the Clos le Mont 1934 shared some months ago with Baron Raymond de Luze, the proprietor of that fine vineyard; its illustrious predecessors of the '29 and ‘21 vintages, also enjoyed with him on previous visits, not to the banks of the Loire but to those of the Charles in Boston. Though each wine differed considerably from the others, all were in perfect condition and redolent of qualities requiring anything but apologies. The point about Vouvray is this: it does travel, and just as well as a good Bordeaux or Burgundy, when and if the vineyard, the year, the vinification, the bottling, and the handling all are faultless. Today the pre-war vintages that

proved successful—the ‘29’s, ‘33 s, ‘34’s, and '37’s — are not easy to come by, bul the post-war period has come u|with two very fine years. Already the '45’s are scarce but 1947 is even now fulfilling its early promise and I am willing to bet — in fact have bet — that a good Vouvray of that year will travel with complete success.

Another aspect of the Vouvray myth worth examining is the rarely contested thesis that, among all the “gay little wines” of central France, Vouvray is the best. That a flawless Vouvray is a pearl of great price no one in his senses will deny, but the Loire is a long and resourceful river

and I contend that certain reaches of its shores are studded with gems of even greater worth. Downstream, after passing Saumur, at least as fa-

mous for its sparkling wines as for its Cavalry School, the river widens and deepens, and so in a sense do both the range and quality of its grands vins, for on its coteaux south of Angers, and on those of the Layon, we find the lovely wines of Anjou.

My first meeting with a really tiptop Anjou came only a few years before the Second World War. At Champtocé, not far from Angers, my wife and I were visiting an old friend, Gerard Gignoux. He had a vineyard, a very good vineyard, and he made his own wanes. In spite of the Gallic flavor of his name, this friend was and is American; and so, with gallant disregard of the ancient Anjevin injunction prohibiting women from descending to the wine cellar, where their presence is supposed to have a deleterious effect, on the wine, he treated us both to a memorable sampling from the wood of his delectable '33’s and ‘34’s. Sparing the reader the customary rhapsodies as to body, bouquet, the faint but unmistakable suggestion of mingled quince and apricot blossoms, suffice it to say that we lost no time in ordering the last remaining barrels of each vintage.

A first-rate Anjou, like a superior Vouvray, while in no sense syrupy, is nevertheless nearly always on the sweet side; for in good years, such as 1945 or 1947, it is in the nature of the Chenin grape, or pineau de la Loire — the informing vine of the best Vouvrays and Anjous — to be generous with its natural sugars. A “dry” Anjou (or a “dry” Vouvray) usually indicates an inferior wine.

As in the case of Vouvray, considerable disservice has been done the noble wines of the lower Loire by the type of Paris restaurant specializing in what it is pleased to call les petits vins d’Anjou, which are often concoctions to which no respectable Anjevin would give cellar room. With such poor relations, the suave full-bodied wines of the best growths of the Coteaux de la Loire and the Coteaux du Layon (notably the famous Chaume district) have little or nothing in common, and their virlues — at their best — surpass those of even the finest Vouvray. Incidentally, they love traveling.