Presenting Vouvray wine region in The Loire Valley of France. Chenin Blanc is the prime grape grown in these chalky soils, producing selections rich in orchard fruits, characterized by bracing acidity. Gaston Huet is the best known winemaker from Vouvray, recognized by all the major wine publications as a compelling force within the world of white wine. #vouvray #cheninblanc #gastonhuet #whitewine
so what’s a grape Explorer talking about today so we are going to talk about France again one of my most favorite areas in all of France is the lir valley and I’m going to point this out on the map uh but I’m going to talk about a little bit about the wine that we’re going to talk about which is called V and V if you’re following our our uh Channel we talk about grapes we talk about regions the great pair of shanen Blan it’s probably the most famous area of shanon Blanc in all the world we’re starting to see more shanon Blan grown places like South Africa which I think is one of the best areas for shanon Blanc they actually say that the shenon blon that they grow in South Africa are very reminiscent to this area right here on the map which is called the lir valley lir Valley is pretty big here so we’re going to zoom in on this area though this area right here is called terrain right here and then you’re just going right across here and this is V and this is actually the Nirvana of shanon blonc here because you have along the river all the best of the Shannon blcs you have V here you got Moni here there’s also savir there’s Bono these are all the most fabulous areas for shenan blong but we’re going to we’re going to zoom in on this area today because I just wanted to talk about uh V and I wanted to at least uh spend some highlights here so v um actually existed uh since the Middle Ages Vin culture existed in V since the Middle Ages and when the Catholic Church maintained Vineyards in the local monasteries the shanon Blanc was known locally as the Pino deir uh was created in actually anju so if You’ ever had a an anju that is also uh considered shenon blon great but I’ve had some experience with uh with V at one time I distributed Gaston huet Wines in uh in Florida and uh became a big fan of Gaston well what they did was they identifi the different areas of vet on the label this one actually says if you look on the label it says V that means that it is a dry V and uh Gaston huette would put SE SCC on the label and that would identify the wine as a uh a dry wine but also what Gaston U did which was really kind of cool um at least even today he identifies single Vineyards uh which is on the label he’ll put on the label V and it’ll say SE and it’ll say U which is also a single V uh Vineyard to identify the zone so why does somebody do that well actually these wines are very chalky soils and when you dig down 20 30 ft you’re coming on a really hard chalky soil and the vines Believe It or Not penetrate through and puncture the The Vines um puncture the the uh the soil composition there which is chalk that actually gets into the wine so when you when you smell and you taste this wine you can actually smell that kind of chalky soil but the first thing that you smell is Orchard fruit I get nectarines right off the bat when you smell this wine uh that’s that’s the shanon blonc but it has that honey kind of flavor to it so you get a little bit of that that uh that sweetness uh from the grape from Shannon but what’s what’s in intriguing about these wines is that you would think like oh that’s going to be like overtly fruity like reasing no when you taste the wines because that chalky soil it gives it the bracing refreshing acidity that just cuts right through the uh the fruit so when you taste this wine again that’s Orchid fruit you get apples you get nectarines you get peaches and then you get that acidity and it hangs with you for a long period of time you can maintain this wine in your mouth when you just tasting it for close to 30 seconds because that’s what these wines are all about they’re beautiful wines so remember when you’re tasting V and if you want to try vet you want dry it’ll say SE secc on the label if you want an off dry style they’re called Demis and those are usually you know a little more fruer in style because they leave The Grapes on a little long longer to get that little more residual and if you want a sweet wine like the super sweets they call it mu and that is actually when the grapes shrivel down to a raisin like Saturn and uh can become can be great and the reason why I say great is decanter magazine came out with their top 50 wines of all time and Gaston ett’s 1947 Muer was one of the 50 the only two sweet wines you had chatei Kem and you had Gaston who at mu 1947 that tells you a lot that’s world class wines oh and by the way if you want a little Sparkle in your wine too they make sparkling vou again those are in the drier Styles because they’re more tend on the SE so when you taste those wines they’re beautiful but they have that natural acidity like champagne it’s the closest thing to Champagne except champagne and Chardonnay on the white side but when you taste V it’s Shen and Blanc and it’s beautiful beautiful expression of wine uh by the way just a little Point 1936 was the first year that uh that V became what’s called appal see right here we got appal the orang right here and you’ve got terrain we’ve got V we’ve got one of the best wines made in France people don’t pay attention to these wines and guess what that means that the prices are very very good again this is a grape Explorer always talking about great great wines