The emergence of the association is partly tied to an evolution in the kind of vignerons working in the area, explains Bernard. Although a good portion of the soils are more granite- or limestone-based, the term volcanic is tied to the region’s geology in the wider sense-and it also creates a catchy and attractive umbrella to distinguish the appellations from the ones downriver in Centre-Loire or the Val de Loire. “Appellations lost in the middle of nowhere, and all these volcanoes around-there’s certainly a story to be told,” says Yvan Bernard of Les Chemins de l’Arkose, an organic estate in the Côtes d’Auvergne, which he founded about 20 years ago and now shares with fellow winemaker Audrey Baldassin. Their group tastings have picked up steam as travel restrictions gradually loosened, and producers have been finding new buyers in France and abroad. Since its inception, the association has been working to bring attention to this group of appellations that are largely focused on Gamay-with a great range of expressions in a fairly diverse set of terroir conditions. In 2019, feeling somewhat ignored by the rest of the Loire (and maybe the rest of the wine world), about 40 vignerons from these four appellations formed an association called Loire Volcanique, evoking the volcanoes that sculpted the region and a good portion of its soils. However, the source of the Loire River is somewhere southeast of this-between Clermont-Ferrand and Lyon, near Le Puy-en-Velay-and there are actually four wine appellations in this rather large stretch of land: Saint-Pourçain, Côtes d’Auvergne, Côtes du Forez, and Côte Roannaise. These days, a whole bunch of producers are looking to extend the traditional map of the Loire Valley, which typically goes from Nantes, on the Atlantic coast, to the area around Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, in central France.
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