The general principle behind the picking of grapes for Moulin Touchais is that around one-quarter of the crop is harvested relatively early (about 80 days after flowering) and whilst the fruit is slightly under-ripe. This component part helps to maintain the acidity in the final blend.
The balance is then picked up to 120 days following flowering, ensuring the grapes are loaded with sugar although not generally affected by noble rot, the reason being that the Touchais vines are at the back of the Coteaux du Layon appellation and away from the river where there is less humidity to encourage the botrytis spores.
The wine is then committed to bottle early – as soon as March the following vintage – and allowed to age for a minimum of ten years in the cellars before release.
Whilst a Coteaux-du-Layon is produced in the cellar every year, it is not systematic that each vintage will be released under the Moulin Touchais label. Typically, the wines all contain between 70 and 80 grams of residual sugar and, like with many other similar examples from the Loire, they only really come into their own after two decades in bottle.
The greatest vintages for Moulin Touchais correspond to the best years in the Loire (they also tend to produce the largest quantities too) and legends include the 1945, 1947, 1949, 1953 and 1959, 1961, 1964 and 1969. Sadly, these are no longer commercially available, but occasionally crop up on tasting and at auction. Apparently, the 1959 vintage was so copious that the cellar only stopped the sale of this vintage commercially as recently as 2006!
