Gratien and Meyer

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Gratien & Meyer – a jewel in the Loire Valley’s Anjou-Saumur region – was founded by Alfred Gratien in 1864, then aged just 23, and in the same year he established the well-respected Champagne house that is his namesake. The ‘Meyer’ refers to Albert Jean Meyer, an enthusiastic wine expert from Alsace with whom Alfred Gratien joined forces ten years later in 1874, the same year of course in which The Society was founded. When Alfred died in 1885, the Meyer family was entrusted with the company and has continued to uphold its excellent traditions.

The Society first discovered the wines of Gratien & Meyer in 1906 when some Saumur was shipped to our cellars in London. The company quickly became The Society’s choice for our sparkling wines, and today Gratien & Meyer are still responsible The Society’s Saumur and Saumur Rosé as well as The Society’s Celebration Crémant de Loire, all of which are bestsellers.

The Gratien & Meyer house is based near Saumur, in the heart of the Loire’s Anjou region. The river helps to moderate the climate, which is similar to that of Champagne, while the region’s hillsides store daytime heat and the cool nights provide moisture. Gratien & Meyer buy their grapes from carefully selected growers from Anjou – here, the region’s famous ‘tuffeau’ (limestone) soils are ideal for sparkling wine production as they provide brilliant acidity. The cool Gratien & Meyer cellars are also dug deep into these chalky soils, and haven’t changed much since the house was founded.

The winery, on the other hand, has undergone great modernisation in recent years to ensure that tradition can be balanced with the relevant technological advances. Combined with the meticulous attention of head winemaker Florence Haynes, this has ensured Gratien & Meyer wines are better now than ever before.

The key to great Loire sparklers is the blend. While Saumur regulations on this are rather strict – a maximum of 40% cabernet franc and 20% chardonnay can be used – an advantage for Crémant de Loire is that any percentage of the permitted grape varieties can be used.

Every spring, The Society’s Celebration Crémant de Loire is expertly blended by Society buyer Jo Locke. Florence and her team first sample all of the base wines they have and put together a shortlist of what they believe are the best parcels, but it is down to Jo to construct the final blend. Although generally we use different portions of the typical chenin blanc, chardonnay and cabernet franc, we have in recent years used small portions of the region’s other grapes, including pinot noir. The wines then age for a year in Gratien & Meyer’s cellars before reaching our members.

Anjou Touraine

The Loire is the longest river in France, stretching some 1,000km from its source in the south to the Atlantic coast a little west of Nantes. At times majestic, never more so than when overlooked by one of the many spectacular châteaux that lie close to its banks, it was in the past a vital trade waterway. Today, it is better known as a tourist destination. Throughout, the river has been a key factor in the production of wine, whether as a transport route, as a supply of water, for its cooling effects on the surrounding land, or for the mist that often lingers along parts of the valley and helps in the production of many of the fine sweet wines that the Loire Valley is famous for.

The geology and climate - the terroir - varies dramatically along the length of the Loire, and, as a result, so too does the choice of grapes planted and the style of wines produced.

Red wines are in the minority but a combination of vastly improved husbandry over the last few years coupled with what looks increasingly to be the effects of climate change have made these wines more and more attractive. The main varieties are:

Gamay produces wines akin to Beaujolais in the south; in the Touraine, gamay generally has less overt fruit and a slightly earthy character which is not unattractive with food but some will find an acquired taste.

Cabernet franc, one of Bordeaux’s grapes, is normally grown here as a single varietal. At its best it has a lovely fragrance and freshness with a good, gentle tannin structure, making it the ideal lunchtime red.

Pinot noir is the most delicate of the Loire’s red grapes, producing excellent rosé as well as fine reds that can rival good village Burgundy (more Côte de Beaune than Côte de Nuits in style).

Whites are made principally from three single grape varieties. Muscadet, or melon de Bourgogne as it is still sometimes called in France, dominates in the far west, producing fresh, dry, sappy wines that are at their best with seafood.

Chenin blanc covers much of the vineyard land around and between Angers and Tours, and is responsible for the Loire’s sweet wines as well as some excellent - and quite varied - dry ones. Many develop greater finesse and complexity with age, but chenin is a grape that requires patience and understanding as, more than any other variety, it can pass through a rather ungenerous "closed" phase, only to blossom again later. Something Noël Pinguet of Domaine Huet likens to the unresponsive teenage years of our children.

Sauvignon blanc offers important volumes of good, everyday drinking in the Touraine region but produces its best examples in the Central Vineyards of Sancerre and Pouilly and its near neighbours Menetou-Salon, Reuilly, and Quincy. Loire sauvignon is rarely oaked and is normally fresh, grassy, bone dry and lightly aromatic, making it the perfect wine to serve with fish.


Other than the grape, two other key factors should influence your choice of Loire wines. Far and away the most important is the name of the producer. Buy from a trusted, ideally tried and tested source and you will not be disappointed in quality terms.

The other major influence in the Loire is the style and quality of the vintage. As one of France’s most northerly wine producing regions, and even with the apparent effects of climate change, the Loire does suffer from the vagaries of the weather, which means that the quality and even more the style of the harvest can vary quite significantly.

As a very rough rule of thumb, if we have poor spring and summer weather in the UK then chances are there will have been similarly poor weather in the Loire. On these occasions it is all the more important to stick to growers you trust, read whatever information you have easy access to in order to better inform your choice, and be prepared to adapt to sometimes significant shifts in style. 2005 and 2006 were warm, healthy vintages with ripe fruit and lower acidity, producing more approachable wines. 2007 and 2008 mark a return to much more typical, classically styled Loire vintages with wines that are lighter in body (and alcohol) and with much fresher acidity. If you are lucky you will enjoy both, but many will have a strong preference for one style over another.