Daily Wine Tidbits

So, we've already talked about how to pick out your Alsace wines, but how do you pick out your wine from the Loire Valley? Well, in Alsace, you would choose your wine by grape variety and shipper. When choosing a Loire Valley wine, you would choose by style and vintage. There are four main styles to be on the lookout for: Pouilly-Fume-a dry wine with the most body and concentration and made 100% from Sauvignon Blanc; Muscadet-a light, dry wine made from 100% Melon grapes; Sancerre-this style strikes a balance between the heavy bodied Pouilly-Fume and the light bodied Muscadet and it's made 100% from the Sauvignon Blanc grape variety; Vouvray-this chameleon can be dry, semisweet or sweet and is made from the Chenin Blanc variety.

I've personally tried a Vouvray, and absolutely loved it. I can say I've never had a Chenin Blanc wine before, and I was not disappointed. I tend to like sweeter wines, so this wine was perfect; not too sweet, and not too dry. 56% of all wines produced in the Loire Valley are white and 96% of those are dry! So, for those people that like dry wines, you may want to start experimenting with Loire Valley wines.