Domaine de Margalleau

Bruno and Jean-Michel Pieaux run Domaine du Margalleau at Chançay, in the hills north-east of Tours at the eastern end of the Vouvray appellation. Georges Pieaux planted the first ten hectares here in 1938; his sons Gérard and Lucien extended the holding from 1955, and the family vines were brought together in 1995 under the name Domaine du Margalleau, taken from one of the original parcels. The brothers have run the estate since that year, and Jean-Michel's son Valentin joined them in 2017 as the fourth generation, making his first rosé, l'Intronisé, in 2018.

Thirty-two hectares lie in the Vallée de Vaux on the tuffeau of Chançay: soft chalk beneath clay and limestone, with a good deal of flint. Chenin Blanc accounts for almost all of the planting, worked across the full sweetness scale and in both still and sparkling form. Alongside the still Vouvray the estate makes traditional-method fines bulles, among them Cuvée Privilège, aged a minimum of forty-eight months on its lees, and the Sélection d'Automne from noble-rot fruit. Two Touraine rosés and an orange Vin de France sit outside the Vouvray appellation.

Fruit is pressed in two pneumatic presses and fermented in temperature-controlled stainless steel; the sparkling wines take their second fermentation in bottle. Treatments in the vineyard are limited and targeted, and the estate has held Haute Valeur Environnementale certification since 2019. Expect green apple, quince and a taut, chalky finish, whatever the sweetness. Arcana Cabinet lists five wines from the domaine: Vouvray Sec, Vouvray Demi-Sec, Vouvray Moelleux, the traditional-method Vouvray Brut and Cuvée Privilège. The range also includes the Génésis bottlings, the Sélection d'Automne, the two Touraine rosés and the orange Vin de France.