Vouvray (wine) often the last in France to be completed, potentially lasting until November. When sweet and botrytized wine are being produced, the harvest is often very labor-intensive, involving successive "tries" or passages through the vineyards with harvesters hand-picking only the ripest berries. Vouvray produces more than a million cases of wine a year. The traditional style of winemaking in Vouvray is a minimalist approach, often using neutral fermentation vessel such as stainless steel and not submitting the wine to malolactic fermentation. While some winemakers are experimenting with oak, very few wines are made with new oak. Vouvrays are usually bottled early
Loire lower Loire found its source upstream of Orléans in the region of Gien, flowing westward along the present course. At a certain point during the long history of uplift in the Paris Basin, the lower, Atlantic Loire captured the "palaeo-Loire" or "Loire séquanaise" ("Seine Loire"), producing the present river. The former bed of the "Loire séquanaise" is occupied by the Loing. The Loire Valley has been inhabited since the Middle Palaeolithic period from 40–90 ka. Neanderthal man used stone tools to fashion boats out of tree trunks and navigated the river. Modern man inhabited the Loire valley around 30 ka.