If Burgundy is order and Languedoc-Roussillon is chaos, the Loire is light. When you enter the Loire region, you notice it right away: everything is vast, everything is bright—even on rainy days. It’s not just the landscape—where viticulture isn’t an extensive monoculture as it is elsewhere—but forests, meadows, and small villages dot the scenery. Even the river, with its breadth, reflects and refracts light along a stretch of over a thousand kilometers.

The gateway to the Loire wine region—the part that interests me most—is Sancerre and its neighboring villages. We arrive there after a long trip in a camper van and immediately realize just how vast the distances are and how tiring the travel can be. In Chavignol, we happen to arrive on the one day of the year when something actually happens: the Chavidamnée, an obstacle course that ends in the town square with a tasting of local wines, its name evoking the curses of Les Monts Damnée, the appellation’s iconic cru.

We taste Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, but we discover that the real gems lie elsewhere, in the lesser-known satellite appellations. Quincy, even more overlooked than Menetou-Salon, wins us over with a simple invitation: “You can’t leave here without a bottle of good Quincy!” I won’t go into the differences in soil types—Terres Blanches, Cailottes, Silex—because after a string of tastings it becomes hard to tell them apart, and because the French go crazy over micro-parcel classifications.

If there’s one place where an obsession with detail truly makes sense, it’s this part of France.

With our heads full of Sauvignon Blanc in all its variations, we resume our journey toward the castle region. I had to disguise the true nature of the trip from my children’s eyes, and the castles were the perfect distraction. As it happens, they’re all located between Amboise and Saumur, the epicenter of the Loire Valley’s great Cabernet Franc and Chenin Blanc wines. The castles have incredible charm, but in hindsight, it was the troglodyte villages that surprised us the most. One in particular: Troglo Degusto.

We arrived along the Cher River to visit La Magnanerie, a troglodytic site, but we were too late. Google directed us to Troglo Degusto, and we rushed there in our RV. A guide intercepts us and drags us into a group without giving us time to figure anything out. We discover that it’s not a troglodyte site, but a winery that produces wines and organizes tours through its tunnels carved into the tuffeau for kilometers.

At one point, he turns off the lights and leaves us in total darkness, transforming an impromptu visit into an unforgettable experience. The final wine tasting—chilly and featuring forgettable wines—becomes memorable nonetheless thanks to the atmosphere.

(To be continued…)