Domaine de la Roche Moreau

The Davy family has been in Saint-Aubin for five generations, on the Corniche angevine, the ridge that separates the Loire valley from the Layon valley. Twenty-eight hectares.

The house occupies two buildings unusual for a winery. The first is a listed seventeenth-century manor, which serves as the cellar. The second is a disused coal mine: the wines rest and age in its galleries.

They keep vintages going back to 1980.

They make every appellation of the area, Chaume and Quarts de Chaume among them. Picking is done entirely by hand, and for the Coteaux du Layon, the Chaume 1er Cru and the Quarts de Chaume Grand Cru they go through the same vineyard several times, picking in successive passes: noble rot does not advance evenly across the berries, so each has to be fetched when it is ready.

They farm on reasoned lines, with natural grass cover between the rows.