Loire Valley (wine) more pronounced mineral notes. The Cabernet franc based wines are also lighter in color with more vegetal or "weed"-like aromas. In riper vintages, a Loire Cabernet franc will develop aromas of raspberries and lead pencil shavings. The Loire Valley has a high density of vine plantings with an average of 1,600-2,000 vines per acre (4,000-5,000 per hectare). Some Sancerre vineyards have as many as 10,000 plants per hectare. With more vines competing for the same limited resources in the soil, the density is designed to compensate for the excessive yields that some of the grape varieties, like Chenin blanc, are
Loire Nevers, La Charité-sur-Loire, Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, Cher: Sancerre, Loiret: Briare, Gien, Orléans, Loir-et-Cher: Blois, Indre-et-Loire: Amboise, Tours, Maine-et-Loire: Montsoreau, Saumur, Loire-Atlantique: Ancenis, Nantes, Saint-Nazaire. The Loire Valley in the Loire river basin, is a stretch in the western reach of the river starting with Orléans and terminating at Nantes, short of the Loire estuary and the Atlantic Ocean. The tidal stretch of the river extends to a length of and a width of , which has oil refineries, the port of Saint-Nazaire and of wetland whose formation is dated to 7500 BC (caused by inundation by sea waters on the northern bank