Château La Roche en Loire: Vineyards
Château La Roche en Loire is located near the mouth of the Indre, before the river flows out onto the plain of the Loire, where the two bodies of water run parallel to one another until the diminutive Indre drains into the rather more majestic Loire just south of Bourgueil. It sits close to a small hamlet named La Belle Croix, which itself lies on an ancient road that runs between Chinon and Tours. This is the road said to have been walked by Joan of Arc (c1412 – 1431), before she forded the Indre at Le Port Huault, en route for Tours before the Siege of Orléans.
Located on the south side of the river, the château sits above the valley very close to the tree line. Behind it is long-established forest which runs all the way south to Chinon, Cravant-les-Coteaux and the Vienne, forest that was undoubtedly here at the time of Joan of Arc’s journey. The estate boasts 35 hectares of land all told, although only a small part of this is planted to vines, the vineyards sitting in a several parcels around and below the château, interspersed with apple and pear orchards, truffle oaks and beehives. Between the château and the nearby forest the land is largely fallow. Underfoot the soils are predominantly sand and clay, although they are also peppered with pebbles and stones, which is said to account for the roche in Château La Roche en Loire.
The plots directly below the château are mostly Chenin Blanc, accounting for 4 hectares, although there is also a significant plot of Grolleau, plus another just to the west, covering 1.1 hectares. In addition there are 0.5 hectares each of Cabernet Franc and Côt, across four smaller plots. In total there are just over 6 hectares of vines, with an average planting density of 3,800 vines per hectare; it is somewhat higher than this in the many plots of red vines, but the low density in the Chenin Blanc plots, a little over 3,100 vines per hectare, brings the average down somewhat.
