Château du Petit Thouars
Appellation: Chinon
Owner: Sébastien & D’Arcy de Saint-Georges, Comte et Comtesse du Petit Thouars
Ten-second primer: A picturesque château dating to the 15th century, viticulture was re-established here by Yves de Saint-Georges during the 1970s. In 2009 his son, Sébastien, took the reins. The estate produces a range of wines, certified organic since 2022. Wines made by Clément Curet.
This profile includes: Four pages of history and detail (links above), and tasting notes back to 2013.
Head west from Chinon along the left bank of the Vienne and it is easy to forget you are driving through one of France’s largest and most significant wine regions. While the landscape on the opposite bank, around Beaumont-en-Véron, is blanketed with the vines of the Chinon appellation, here on the south side of the river the vineyards seem few and far between.
The reason for this is quite straightforward. Back in the 1930s when many of France’s appellations were first defined, it was clear to the vignerons of many of the country’s wine towns that the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée system was the future. Chinon was no exception, and those who tended vines around the town itself, to the west in Beaumont-en-Véron, and on the left bank of the Vienne facing the town all elected to join this novel system.
Having said that, dotted across France there were some vignerons who were dissuaded from signing up to this new system by the associated costs and new regulations. This was the case in Saint-Germain-sur-Vienne, downstream of the appellation and town, overlooking the Vienne from the south bank; the vignerons here opted to remain outside the Chinon appellation boundary. The end result was that any vineyards planted here were restricted to the generic Touraine appellation. And this remained the case for the next eighty-or-so years.
