Saint-Pourçain

Styles

Principal grape varieties

Accessory grape varieties

Terroir

• The vineyard forms a north–south band roughly twenty kilometres long and about four kilometres wide, on the western flank of the Val de l'Allier and the Sioule, in the Limagne bourbonnaise.
• The plots, scattered across a multitude of small parcels, are planted at altitudes of between 250 and 350 metres, on hillside sites or on gravelly terraces deposited by the Sioule and the Allier.
• The crystalline basement broke apart during the Tertiary era as a consequence of the Alpine folding, giving rise through a system of faults to the Limagne graben, which was gradually filled with sediments and subsequently carved out by the Allier and its tributaries.
• The vineyard is spread across 19 communes in three major geological groupings: clay-limestone hillsides to the east and south-east on Oligo-Miocene marls and limestones, Plio-Quaternary terraces of sands and clays in the Bourbonnais whose soils often contain a significant proportion of rounded gravels, and hillsides of granite and gneiss from the crystalline basement to the west in a back-slope position.
• The degraded continental climate is relatively dry, with a mean annual rainfall of 700 millimetres, even lower during the vine's growing season, and associated with a foehn effect for westerly air flows.

• The vineyard was reconstituted after the nineteenth-century phylloxera crisis, notably with the Gamay and Sacy varieties, the latter being known locally as Tressallier.
• The wine passed through the port of La Chaise at Monétay-sur-Allier, at the confluence with the Sioule, before being dispatched to Paris via the Allier and then the Loire.

• The white wines present aromas often dominated by notes of white-fleshed fruits, exotic fruits, or citrus, sometimes accompanied by floral or mentholated notes.
• The rosé wines often display a salmon-tinged colour, with aromas of white and red fruits sometimes lifted by an amylic note.
• The red wines, deep in colour, most often express notes of red and black fruits such as cherry or blackcurrant, lifted by spices such as pepper or coriander, and some reveal an ageing potential of around 2 to 4 years.

• The area benefits from a climate that is temperate relative to its broader surroundings, notably owing to a foehn effect for westerly air flows.

Facts drawn from the specification's terroir-link section by automatic interpretation — see the source.

All appellations in France

Sources

• Product specification (BO Agri, PDF) — approved 26 mai 2025 publié au JORF du 29 mai 2025, JORF 29 mai 2025
• Official INAO text (show_texte)
• INAO product entry