schiller-wine: Cellar Tour and Tasting at Domaine Pichot, Vouvray, Touraine, with Louis Pichot

The Loire Tour 2025 by ombiasy WineTours took place from Sunday, October 5 to Thursday, October 16, 2025. The tour started in Nantes and ended in Sancerre, with a bus transfer and lunch in Paris. There were 9 of us including Annette and myself.

Today we explored the famous Vouvray region. I found the perfect description of Vouvray on Kevin Pike’s Schatzi Wine (one of the great importers to the US of German and other European wines) website:

“Vouvray is one of the Loire’s great terroirs for Chenin Blanc. As part of the Paris basin, the soils are largely fossilized marine based. The bedrock, from which the region’s myriad historic cellars are cut, is tuffeau. The topsoils are flinty clay, limestone, gravels, and marls. The climate is marked by the tension between moderate maritime and more extreme continental influences. This, and the fact that Vouvray is traditionally one of the last parts of France to harvest, opens vignerons here to great risk - first, of severe weather, foremost hail later, of disease. The reward is a cool climate that allows both the acid edge and haunting, subtle depth of Chenin to develop to maximum potential. Multiple vineyard passes are key to producing the traditional range of style from sec to moelleux to sparkling. The wines can fall anywhere between austere and opulent, depending on the ripeness and botrytis levels of the vintage.”

We started the day in Vouvray at Domaine Pichot. We toured the cellar and sat down for a tasting. Louis Pichot was our host.

Domaine Pichot exports quite a bit of their production to the USA. Vineyard Brands is the US importer.

Loire 2025 by ombiasy WineTours led by Annette Schiller

Annette Schiller in her announcement: What comes to your mind when you hear ‘Loire Valley’? Of course images of glorious Châteaux pop up in your mind. Yes that is true and we will visit some iconic château and dig deep into France’s history. However, during this wine tour we also discover a magnificent, but often overlooked French wine region and one of the most exciting best kept secrets of excellent, high quality wines at very reasonable prices. The Loire Valley wine region is a vast area and consists of several distinct wine regions, each with its own characteristic grapes, appellations, and wine style. We take you on a journey from the Atlantic Ocean to the Auvergne mountains to explore this unique region. We learn to appreciate “Sancerre”, "Pouilly-Fumé", “Vouvray", “Chinon”, as well as many other not so familiar appellations.

Domaine Pichot in Vouvray, AOP Vouvray, Touraine

Vineyard Brands: Jean-Claude Pichot’s family is one of the oldest in Vouvray, with origins as viticulturists and restaurateurs dating back to 1739. The family cellars are located in the charming village of Vouvray, in caverns hewn from the rolling hills which were once quarried to provide stone to construct the grand châteaux of the Loire. Domaine Pichot was established in 1996, uniting the three historic vineyards of the family: Coteau de la Biche, Le Peu de la Moriette, and Le Marigny. The 60 acres of vineyards are all in Vouvray, six miles east of Tours on the right bank of the Loire River. The vines are thirty years old on average and are all of the Chenin Blanc variety. In an era when most Vouvray wines are bottled by négotiants, the stylish wines of the Pichot family continue to show the perfumed elegance of Chenin Blanc and are authentic expressions of a particular terrain, climate, cellar, and the winemaker’s art.

Arriving