A wine co-op near Amboise (Loire Valley)

There's a big wine cooperative near Amboise — 45 minutes from Saint-Aignan by car —  where wine is sold retail to the public. You can buy wine in bottles there, of course, but the winery also sells its wines in Bag-in-Box packaging, and even en vrac (in bulk). It's in the town of Limeray, just north of Amboise, and is called Le Cellier Léonard de Vinci. You might know that Leonardo spent the last years of his life in Amboise as the guest of the French king François 1er. Touraine-Amboise, like Touraine-Chenonceaux and Touraine-Azay-le-Rideau, is a sub-appellation (dénomination géographique) within the larger Touraine AOC wine production area.

There are also wine cooperative wineries over near the Château de Chenonceau, in the towns of Bléré and Valençay, and, just across across the river from Saint-Aignan in Noyers-sur-Cher. What's a wine co-op? It's a winery with members who are grape-growers in the surrounding area and who opt to sell their grapes or grape juice to the co-op rather than make wines on their own property. By the way, most of the wine produced in Champagne is made in co-ops. It doesn't make economic sense for every grape-grower to invest in the equipment and materials needed to produce wine. They band together, and everybody benefits.

Above is the entrance at the Cellier Léonard de Vinci, and below is a photo of the main room where the wines are sold. The bottled wines are kept in metal cages. The en vrac (bulk) wines are stored in big stainless steel vats. To buy those, you bring your own containers and an employee fills them with wines directly out of the vats. Finally, in the photo below you can also see many BIBs stacked up again a wall on the right. Wine is sold in either five-liter or ten-liter BIBs.

Here's the gist of the introduction to the winery and vineyard that you'll see in French on the Cellier Léonard de Vinci web site:

Our vineyard is located near the Château d'Amboise, one of the most beautiful in Touraine. Situated between Blois and Tours, the Touraine-Amboise wine-production area is on the left and right banks of the Loire. Our soils are mainly a mix of clay and limestone, which makes for robust wines. Today, our vineyard covers an area of 140 hectares (350 acres) spread over six different towns and villages.

Our approach to wine-making, which is aimed at producing wines of excellence, the grape varieties best suited to our terroir are planted: Gamay, Grolleau, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, and Côt (Msalbec) for red wines, and Chenin, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc for white wines. The annual harvest usually takes place in mid-September.