Dom. de Veilloux Cheverny Blanc

The Wine... Sauvignon Blanc and Menu Pineau are equal partners in Veilloux’s white wine. The vines from which this fruit is harvested are between 20 and 50 years of age. The soil is a mix of clay and limestone. Floral, mineral aromas and a clean dry finish make Veilloux blanc a great choice for scallops.

The Man... Michel Quenioux biodynamically farms 60 acres of land in Cheverny, an important AOC east of the city of Tours in the Loire Valley of France. His family began farming land around his home village of Fougeres in 1800. His chateau is over 1,000 years old. Michel has created a gravity-flow wine system at the estate that uses less energy and minimizes damage to the wine during the winemaking process. His grape press is old, gentle, and slow. Quenioux belives in bottling wine unfiltered.

The Farming... Quenioux works in adherence to biodynamic principles. In keeping with Rudolf Steiner’s ideas on agriculture, 60 acres of land at Domaine de Veilloux are not farmed, to allow space for nature and the possibility of a more balanced ecology surrounding the vines.Sometimes viewed as an extreme or fundamentalist (or just dippy) ideology by its detractors, biodynamic viticulture has steadily been gaining adherents and admirers in the 21st Century, and is now a powerful marketing advantage to growers willing to follow its tenets. Soil health is at the core of biodynamics, but the system also ties elements of astronomy to farming, particularly attention to positions of planets and phases of the moon during key viticultural and winemaking processes. Conventional herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers are not permitted in biodynamic agriculture. Instead, farmers apply diffuse amounts of chamomile, oak, valerian, nettle, and dandelion to promote vine health.