Alain & Loïc Cailbourdin: Vineyards
The domaine is based in on the main road, which has Roman origins, as it runs through Maltaverne, a tiny hamlet which lies barely 4 kilometres from the bridge that spans the Loire here, joining the Centre and Bourgogne regions. Over the years it has grown to about 20 hectares, of which about 10 hectares are older vines, already well established when the domaine was born in 1980. The other 10 hectares are younger vines, planted by Alain Cailbourdin during his tenure of the vineyards.
There are four distinct terroirs that Alain works, and these are as follows. First, he has vines on the plateau around the hamlet of Bois Fleury, which lies north of Saint-Andélain and north-east of Tracy-sur-Loire. Here there are sandy, alluvial soils over deeper limestone, planted with some of the domaine’s youngest vines. This, in combination with the clay-and-sand soils means the resulting cuvée is entry-level, although I provide more detail on the wines, each of which reflects the terroir of origin, further down the page.
The second terroir is Les Cris (cris is a derivation of craie, meaning chalk). Here there are vines closer on average to 35 years of age planted on limestone slopes of caillottes with a south-westerly aspect. Third comes Les Cornets, a 3-hectare parcel of clay and Kimmeridgian marl planted with older vines, aged at least 45 years, dating back to the time before Alain Cailbourdin took the domaine in hand.
