Savennières Vineyards: The Savennières Plateau
Having explored the vineyards of the Épiré plateau, continuing in a southerly direction takes us down the slope of the adjacent coulée, on which sits the Clos de la Coulée de Serrant, and then up and over the Roche-aux-Moines plateau, which is entirely taken up with the vineyards of the Savennières Roche-aux-Moines appellation. I will not explore these vineyards on this page, as I will deal with them in my guides to the Coulée de Serrant and Savennières Roche-aux-Moines appellations. So for the moment we skip over the Roche-aux-Moines plateau, skip down the next coulée and up onto the next section of the plateau.
This brings us to the Savennières plateau, which sits above the village of Savennières itself. This plateau is home to some of the appellation’s most famed vineyards, with complex soils of quartz, spilite and phthanite, laid over schist bedrock like the characteristically fractured grey schist (pictured beloe), which I shall examine on this page. I shall also look beyond the plateau, to the vineyards southwest of the town of Savennières, once mostly overlooked but now of increasing significance.
I begin with the vineyards which sit behind Château de Varennes, one of the appellation’s ‘old guard’ châteaux.
Directly behind the château sits the 10 hectares of the Clos de Varennes, although as with a number of the appellation’s grandest properties the vineyard has long been divorced from the château of the same name. Both château and vineyard were once in the hands of the Pirie family, who were of Scottish origin. Seven hectares of vines have followed the same convoluted path of ownership as Château Belle-Rive in the Quarts de Chaume appellation, passing first from Yves Soulez to Gaston Lenôtre, then to Bernard Germain and then Alain Château. In recent years, however, Château has been divesting himself of his Loire properties.
