Domaine des Sablonnettes: Vineyards
Domaine des Sablonnettes is located close to Rablay-sur-Layon, one of the six (seven if we include Chaume, even though this village now has its own appellation) villages of the Coteaux du Layon appellation. Rablay-sur-Layon sits on the left bank of the Layon, as it meanders its way towards Beaulieu-sur-Layon and then St-Lambert-du-Lattay, Chaume and eventually draining into the Loire itself. The Sablonnettes domaine sits a short distance to the south-east of the village, surrounded by vines.
Many of these surrounding vineyards belong to Joël Menard, who works a total of 13 hectares. Of this, 11 hectares are located here, but there are a couple of hectares a little way to the east, on the other side of the Layon, in Faye d’Anjou. We should of course be wary of generalising with such scattered vineyards, but the soils are mostly gravel over schist, with the surface soils peppered with quartz. Schist is of course the defining terroir of the Layon, with several huge bands of Carboniferous and Brioverian schist running almost parallel with the river.
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