Forgotten France: The volcanic wines of Côtes du Forez

The eye traces the Loire from its mouth in Muscadet to Sancerre in the east. Pulled into Burgundy’s current, we’re soon adrift in Beaujolais, forgetting that France’s longest river bends sharply south to its origins in the volcanic heart of the Massif Central.

The Côtes du Forez lies on the slopes of this ancient landscape, almost off the map – yet nearest to where the river begins.

The smallest of the four appellations that make up the Loire Volcanique – a collective whose origins date back to a 2014 tasting entitled Ici Commence La Loire (‘Here the Loire Begins’) – Forez covers just 150ha of vines.

Its vineyards sit above the headwaters at elevations of 400m-600m, on granite and basalt soils derived from volcanic activity millions of years ago.

Narrow river-carved valleys – les gouttes – divide Forez into a patchwork of scattered hillside vineyards, mixed with pasture and forest.

Gamay is the sole grape permitted under the Forez AP, and the 11 domaines within the appellation mostly work with Gamay St Romain, a local biotype adapted to this upland terrain over centuries, producing wines of fine tannins, spiced red fruit, pepper and smoky minerality.

The Gamay connection invites associations with Beaujolais, but Forez’s higher elevation, shorter growing season and St Romain variant make for an edgier, more savoury expression.

Mostly unoaked, the wines manage to be dark yet light, mercifully registering around 12% alcohol.

Beyond Gamay, the vignerons of Forez bottle everything from volcanic Viognier and Chenin to Syrah under the IGP Urfé designation.

From the 1960s until the establishment of the Forez AP in 2000, virtually all local wine came from a single cooperative.

It was a long fall from grace: vines flourished here through the Middle Ages, and by 1883, there were more than 5,000ha under vine, fortifying the local mining industry and sending wine up the river.

Economically decimated by the phylloxera bug and two world wars, Forez was all but forgotten until a few local patriots brought it back from the edge.

Basalt crags and mountain Gamay

I arrived on a green-grey April morning with a cadre of curious Parisian sommeliers and wine merchants.

The vignerons greeted us at Château de Marcoux, perched on a basalt crag above the valley, and we tasted these mountain Gamays over a hearty lunch – charcuterie, Fourme de Montbrison cheese and a steaming pot of potatoes in cheese, cream and butter. I was grateful for the wines’ cleansing acidity and spicy profile.

Forez’s Gamays on granite, I found, tend toward richer, fruit-driven wines, whereas the basalt expressions are more mineral and ethereal.

Among the first to make wine outside the co-op were the Logel family. Today, cousins Maxime Verdier [Gillier] and Julie Logel carry the torch, having returned to Forez – Maxime from city life, Julie from development work in Cambodia.

I heard their colourful story – and those of fellow vignerons Stéphane Réal and Gilles Bonnefoy – over dinner at Château de Goutelas, where the menu was prepared chef Jacques Marcon of Michelin three-star Restaurant Régis & Jacques Marcon in St-Bonnet-le-Froid.

Famous for his use of wild mushrooms – gloriously in season at the time – Marcon served one of the finest meals I’ve had in France, and Forez’s volcanic Gamays rose to every course.

Pulsing with life

It’s easy to assume that places such as Forez – almost off the map – are provincial backwaters. But as I find time and again, there’s both natural beauty and cultural vibrance in forgotten France.

Medieval Château de Goutelas, part hotel, part progressive cultural centre, hosts artist residencies and music events – from raves to baroque ensembles. Perched in a forest among vines on the side of an extinct volcano, it pulses with life.

The Loire, like practically every river, has a hyporheic zone – an underground flow that extends far beyond its visible banks.

When we think we’re standing alongside a river, we are in fact often standing above it, unaware of what moves beneath.

Virginia Woolf, that most deliquescent of writers, put it best: ‘The past only comes back when the present runs so smoothly that it is like the sliding surface of a deep river.’

The eye traces these glistening surfaces, but to go beneath, we must travel to the source.

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