Savennières

Savennières is the Loire's monumental dry Chenin Blanc: a bone-dry, powerful and famously age-worthy white grown on dark schist slopes above the river in Anjou. Where Vouvray charms with an off-dry roundness, Savennières is austere and stony in youth — quince, chamomile, honey and lanolin drawn taut over searing acidity and a hard, mineral spine that softens only with years in bottle.