Levin Wines
Vallée du Loire sur Cher – AOP Touraine – France
40 Chemin de Poliveau, BOURRÉ 41400 – levinwines.com
Certified organic, Loire Valley wine domaine family-owned by Lynne & David Levin MBE.
Story
LEVIN Wines is a family-owned, certified organic winery that has been producing wine in France’s Loire Valley since 1986. David Levin MBE (founder of the five-star Capital Hotel, The Levin Hotel, Michelin-starred Greenhouse Restaurant and The Capital Restaurant, dining at Royal Festival Hall, and Visiting Professor at Oxford Brookes) began growing grapes in the Loire Valley to produce private label wines for his restaurants.
Inspired by his visits to Australia to use new world technology to capture this old world terroir, David had a winery designed in South Australia and built on the estate in 2001. Today, Lynne Levin (who’s international career includes on- and off-trade, supply chain distribution and export market penetration, and in 2016 named Mentor of the Year, Oxford Brookes Masters mentoring programme) manages the domaine and LEVIN Wines’ export to 14 countries. Lynne has overseen the expansion of production to 150,000 bottles per year and the conversion to organic certification.
Lynne & David Levin MBE
Domaine Levin Vintage 2019
Le Vin de LEVIN - Village range
LEVIN - Flagship range
Mister & Madame L - Premium Cuvee
Certified Organic & Sustainable Practices
The Levins are committed to the complicated organic certification (in both winery and vineyards) because their experience is that by excluding artificial interventions and nurturing a healthy ecosystem, their vines are more resilient, grapes are more complex, and the resulting organic wines are more nuanced in both youth and maturity.
Their organic and eco-sustainable practices include handpicking, leaf plucking, certified organic and biodynamic vineyard preparations, and green harvesting; complete supply chain traceability and a commitment to soil conservation using companion planting and no-till agriculture. (Certified Organic No 64932 / 12P ECOCERT.)
Terroir
There are 20 hectares under vine with 19 organic vineyards situated in Touraine across in the Vallée du Loire-sur-Cher in Bourré, Choussy and Oisly.
There are three main soil types. In Bourré, Tuffeau terroir (marine sedimentary limestone formed ~100 million years ago) mixed with loose and flinty clay, mica and sand builds of texture and minerality; and Silex (~65 million years old) flint terroir stores and reflects heat, producing restrained, linear, gunflint-mineral wines with acidity and spice. Choussy and Oisly vineyards are both on sandy topsoil sitting on top of a thick layer of excellent smectite clay adding the varietal flavours and aromas.
The wines are grounded in the Loire Valley terroir, using modern, organic winemaking and organic and biodynamic viticulture practices – to pursue a pure expression of Sauvignon Blanc, from its original home, the Loire.
AOP Touraine–Chenonceaux, Loire Valley, France
Certified Organic & Vegan
Exotic notes of elderflower and lotus are followed with delicate white peach, citrus blossom and pink grapefruit, opening to sweet green characters of clover and wild mint, with an almost saline, chalky-mineral texture.