The best Bourgueil has a fine style equal to the most distinguished claret

The red wines of the Loire ought to be better known, for they were the wines drunk by Gargantua and Pantagruel in their wondrous attempts to subvert the rule of reason and to return our civilisation to its roots in the flesh. They are wines as full of sap as sapience, which open out with the years to fill the glass with the aroma of autumn. And they are cheap - even the better ones can be had for as little as £12 a bottle, and the lighter, cheekier varieties for half the price.

Most are made from the Cabernet Franc grape, and the finest, in my experience, are made in Bourgueil and neighbouring Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, some on the yellow tufa slopes above the Loire, others, of a smoother and fruitier character, on the gravelly soil beneath them. The vineyards are cooled by the Atlantic winds, which blow west to east along the river's corridor, resulting in wines more notable for their fruit than their body, though with surprising depth and character and, at their best, a civilised style equal to that of the most distinguished clarets.

There are two schools of thought regarding Bourgueil. One holds that these should be light wines, pale in colour, with forward fruit and tannins, to be drunk young, possibly chilled, and at any rate without the sniffing and snorting that are called for by deeper and more complex bottles. Majestic Wine has a Bourgueil (Les Cent Boisselees, 2002) that exactly matches this specification, and it is as good as it is cheap - the kind of wine that leads you effortlessly from bottle to bottle with no fear for the future.

The other school of thought holds that Bourgueil should be so crafted that all the fruit and flavour is distilled from the grape to form a deep blackberry-coloured must and a wine rich in tannins, needing several years in the bottle before it gives of its best. For such wines, you should visit Justerini & Brooks, an old firm that has retained its character despite takeover by Diageo, and which has shown a serious interest in the red wines of the Loire. I particularly recommend the Bourgueil La Petite Cave, 2000. This is a ripe, full wine, with marked tannins and a long, dry finish. Made by Yannick Amirault, whose 40-acre estate lies between Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas, and who vinifies under both appellations, this wine was (when I bought it) a remarkable bargain, on offer at well under £10 a bottle.

The Cabernet Franc is known in the region as "Breton", and Amirault's Breton first name might imply some special intimacy with a grape that can thrive in temperate zones. At any rate, his Bourgueil shows an exemplary ripeness, and stood up valiantly to the pie into which we had squeezed one of the wretched roe-deer that have been eating our saplings.

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