Pétillant Blanc

A pétillant naturel: one fermentation, bottled before it finishes and left to complete itself under crown cap on nothing but its own residual sugar and its own yeasts. No liqueur de tirage, no second fermentation, no disgorgement. Jennifer Bariou & Thibaut Bodet make it from Chenin Blanc on clay over flint, from vines around Azay-le-Rideau in the Touraine.

That single fermentation is also why the wine goes out with no geographical indication. AOC Touraine does allow a white sparkling, and Chenin is an approved variety for it, but the rules require it to be made by a second fermentation in bottle and disgorged after at least nine months - which is precisely what the ancestral method does not do. The narrower local designation, Azay-le-Rideau, covers still wines only. So the wine is declared simply as French.