Stunning Sancerre – the town, the wine, the terroir

Janine Marsh is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers and International Travel Writers Alliance. She specialises in writing about France and French life and is editor of thegoodlifefrance.com

Most of us know Sancerre as a delicious white wine, but when I visited Berry Province in the Loire Valley, I discovered that there is more to the name. I found that Sancerre is also a beautiful hill top town and a whole swathe of gorgeous land where the grapes are grown. Janine Marsh takes a sip of the good life in the Loire Valley… 

My first glimpse of the little town of Sancerre, perched up high on a green mountain and looking over the valleys and land to which it gives its name was breath-taking.

A striking medieval  town, with winding hilly streets, beautiful  ancient houses with pastel coloured shutters and roses growing over the doors, and dozens of cafes, bistrots and “caves” to taste wine in. What it also had was spectacular views over the landscape around, which is also known as Sancerre.

A trip to the vineyards and town of Sancerre is just a couple of hours drive from Paris and a great introduction to a Loire Valley trip – it’s such a pretty and friendly region of France.

Sancerre wine is a firm favourite in restaurants and wine bars around the world and especially the US which is the wine’s biggest importer. It is the fossilised soil of Sancerre which gives it its special terroir, a word that sums up all that is great about French food and wine and yet which is almost impossible to explain. In technical terms it refers to the characteristics of a soil, influenced by the weather, the geology and the geography of the land – but it is much more than that, great terroir has great soul. The wines of Sancerre are AOC, Appelation d’Origine Contrôlée, a label that recognises produce as being outstanding and based on the concept of terroir.

 So far so good I thought, but to understand all this a bit better I went to the Maison des Sancerre, a very modern type of museum that tells the story of Sancerre using high tech media. I learned that the land of Sancerre has a secret – that wherever you stand, the soil is not of the same type or age. It is this that makes for an exceptional mosaic of terroir that enables the vines to produce the outstanding grapes for the wine.

I was surprised to discover that Sancerre makes not only white wine but red and rosé too – though in very small amounts (and mostly available locally). There are hundreds of small estates dotted on the 7.5k acres of Sancerre and each may have different soil from the others – all of which offers unlimited possibilities for blending. There are as many wines as winemakers and around 350 families making wine.

Out in the pretty gardens of the Maison des Sancerre is a grape picking machine which had everyone in peels of laughter as it lurched crazily as the amateurs attempted to work the controls – not as easy as you might think. Up on the terrace tables were readied for wine tastings – part of the visit and a bottle of perfectly chilled white Sancerre was produced for me to taste. As I sat there, sipping from the glass (which you get to keep as a souvenir), looking out over this gorgeous valley, I realised a profound truth. The Director of the Maison des Sancerres, Denis Rournet, who had poured the wine, had said “You don’t have to know anything about wine to appreciate the taste… when you take one glass you want another”.  He was absolutely right. I know very little about wines but I know one thing, I like Sancerre a lot!

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