Loire Valley (wine) (where Pouilly-Fumé is made) sit on opposite sides of the Loire river with Sancerre being about to the northwest of Pouilly. The "Fumé" is said to come from the "silex" flint interspersed with the limestone in the area that can give a smoky gunflint note to the wine. Another possibility for the name is the early morning fog created by the Loire river that can blanket the vineyards. Wines labeled with just Pouilly or Pouilly-sur-Loire are often made from the Chasselas grape. Unlike many areas of France, the Sancerre region is heavily mechanized with the use of mechanical harvesting rather
Loire Valley list of World Heritage Sites. In choosing this area that includes the French "départements" of Loiret, Loir-et-Cher, Indre-et-Loire, and Maine-et-Loire, the committee said that the Loire Valley is: "an exceptional cultural landscape, of great beauty, historic cities and villages, great architectural monuments - the "châteaux" - and lands that have been cultivated and shaped by centuries of interaction between local populations and their physical environment, in particular the Loire itself." The Loire Valley chansonniers are a related group of songbooks attributed to the composers of the Loire Valley and are the earliest surviving examples of a new genre which offered