Bonnezeaux

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Terroir

• The vineyard covers three south-west-facing slopes — 'La Montagne', 'Beauregard', and 'Fesles' — across a band 2,800 m long and 500 m wide, with gradients of 15% to 20%.
• The bedrock belongs to the 'Série de Saint-Georges-sur-Loire', a schisto-arenaceous complex ranging from the Upper Ordovician to the Lower Devonian, sometimes overlain by gravelly-clayey or sandy-clayey Cenomanian deposits on the 'Fesles' slope.
• The soils of the delimited parcels are shallow, very rich in coarse elements, greenish-grey in colour and sometimes wine-lees-tinted, with a water-holding capacity below 100 millimetres and excellent drainage.
• Annual rainfall is approximately 550 to 600 millimetres, compared with over 800 millimetres on the higher ground of the Choletais and the Mauges, which shelter the zone from Atlantic moisture.

• Chenin blanc, the sole permitted variety, may benefit from the action of Botrytis cinerea, and over-ripeness is described as forming 'an integral part of the harvest'.

• The balance between acidity, alcohol, and richness allows the wines to develop towards even greater complexity over the years.

• Morning mists rising from the Layon, combined with the skeletal soils with very low water-holding capacity, promote concentration of the berries through shrivelling or desiccation on the vine.

Facts drawn from the cahier's terroir-link section (Lien au terroir) by automatic interpretation — see the source.

Sources

• Product specification (BO Agri, PDF), JORF 20 décembre 2025
• Official INAO text (show_texte)
• INAO product entry
• Official trade body site — InterLoire