THE SOIL
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Loire Valley
The Loire Valley is the third largest wine-growing region in France, stretching from the Atlantique coast to Auvergne. The Loire Valley vineyard is almost 1000 kilometers long, it follows the Loire from its source to its estuary, from the Massif Central to Nantes.
Some information:
The Loire vineyard area represents 70,000 hectares of which 52,000 are classified as AOC / AOP.
The terroir of the Loire region is generally composed of sandy soils, chalk Tuffeau, clay-limestone, sandstone schists, granites and gravels.
The main grape varieties of the Loire are, for red wine: Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Grolleau but also many others… such as cabernet sauvignon in Clau de Nell.
For the white, we mainly find: melon de Bourgogne, chenin and sauvignon blanc.
The Loire enjoys a temperate-oceanic and continental climate.
The grounds of the estate
Clau de Nell is located in the village of Ambillou-Château, in Maine et Loire, between Angers and Saumur.
The plots are located at an altitude of 101 meters at the highest point. 12 hectares in one piece between forests and fields, which allows good biological activity in the soils. In the south, the first 10 centimeters of the soil is composed of silty sand (produced by fluvial erosion of rocks, mainly composed of mineral matter such as quartz).
Deeper down, the soil is mainly sand and clay. Below, and to a depth of about 40 meters, the soil is composed of Tuffeau, historically present in the geology of Anjou-Touraine. Tuffeau is a fine-grained limestone, made up of remains of organisms and fragments of rocks brought by rivers in the form of alluvium.
Analysis of the earth : Claude et Lydia Bourguignon
