Our 2006 Loire Trip Revisited!!

The Trout here, posting again about Chateaus and the wine of the Loire.

We chose the Loire region  for out first week of touring in France with a second week in Normandy for 2006.  I have loved  castles way back when we were stationed in Heidelberg in 1968, when we would tour 1-2 castles a weekend it seemed, for most of the year.  France certainly has its share of great chateaus like Chateau Chenonceau above that seem to be used more for a King's residence rather than for taking shelter from marauding pillagers!

The Loire is also the home of Joan of Arc who supposedly performed miracles as a 13-year-old warrior way back when she led battles to drive the British  out of France.  She is memorialized  throughout France for her heroics in battle!

We chose this dovecote gîte near Chinon for our Loire stay.  It was once home to hundreds of pigeons who were kept for food and fertilizer.  The gîte was well restored for humans and very comfortable.

The dovecote is part of the Chateau de la Vauguyon which was build way back in 1340-50!  It has been owned by the same family since the '30's.   The chateau has seen better days, but is being slowly repaired to its past glory with a second gîte now available in the main building.

The current owner is the son Celian Duthu who is a wonderful host and tour guide for enjoying our week in the Loire.  One day, he wanted to take us to visit his favorite wine producers for white and red wines.

This is Celian and Susan in the vineyards of Domaine de la Noblaie, home of his favorite Chenin Blanc white wine.  Chenin Blanc is not my favorite white as I find it a bit flabby and soft vs. Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc like a Sancerre.  We did buy a couple of bottles for our later evening repasts at the Chateau.

While at the Domaine, we were introduced to a lovely lady who owned and ran the Auberge du Val de Vienne.  She was selecting wines for her cellar to offer to her guests.  We later had lunch there which was  supurb and what a wonderful dining room.

Our next stop was at the Chateau de la Grille, Celian's favorite red wine producer.  It has been sold to the Baudry-Dutour group of 3 wineries in the Loire.  Reds are made from the Cabernet France grape which is pretty much isolated to the Loire for making wines solely from this varietal.  It is used a lot for blending with Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot in the Bordeaux and in the Napa.  It is softer than its big brother and it adds finesse and perfume to the blend.  By itself, we found a wide range of like (nice, soft with lovely fruit and flower notes) to dislike (harsh green vegetal flavors and leaves to green bell peppers).

We tasted the 1996  and 2000 vintages of their offering which we liked enough to buy and bring home for the cellar.  We practically had to take an oath that we hold these wines for at least 6-8 years to allow them to soften and bring out their best finish.  Their wines were pretty tannic early in life and needed to lay down for several years.

We have faithfully let them age until I took both out of storage.  After finding a beautiful bone-in rib eye, I decided it was time to try the 2000 bottle.  After decanting for 3 hours, we were delighted to find this wine had indeed aged to a very nice wine of berry notes with a nice long finish perfect with the steak.

Thanks Celian for helping us enjoy the Loire region which continues today with the lovely wines we brought home 6 years ago!!  We look forward to trying the 1996 soon as well.

Just wine, cheese and bread

The year was 2006, early May, and we were searching in France for wineries.  What a pleasant surprise to arrive at this sight; the winery of Henri Bourgeois.  We were in the Loire Valley and traveled to the village of Chavignol. Henri Bourgeois largely produces Sauvignon Blanc wines under the Sancerre appellation and has many single vineyard bottlings which are generally rated 90 or above by Wine Spectator.  

Not only is this a beautiful modern building with a fantastic tasting room, but the people who work here are so friendly and welcoming and....they speak perfect English.  That always helps, a lot!!  We bought two bottles of Sancerre for 10.60 Euro each, after sampling a lot of wine.  The kind gentleman guiding us also gave us a corkscrew with the winery name on it.  Always handy while traveling.  (sigh)

This last week we found a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc by this vintner and enjoyed it so much last night with a repeat of the "Vietnamese Caramelized Shrimp".

  If you have French wine, you need French cheese.  Stopped at this fromagerie (cheese store) and bought crottins of cheve.  A crottin is a small round, possibly 2 inches in diameter.  You can buy very fresh and very, very aged.  We picked up a sampler of 6 different aged cheeses.  So delicious.  So now, we have the wine and the cheese....you guessed it.....

BREAD!!  Isn't that the most beautiful bread and pastry window?  Picked up a baguette and a couple of pastries for our evening dessert.

We have never taken a tour in France.  The Trout is the researcher and finds an area to visit and then plots out the places we want to see.  We rent a small apartment or house and eat breakfast in our own kitchen, tour during the morning, eat out lunch at a spectacular restaurant, tour in the afternoon and then head to our rental and have dinner and a bottle of wine at home.  It has worked out so well for us.  The last few years we have used our GPS that has international capacities and it works every time.  What we did realize after the first time, you really need to know the zip codes of the villages you want to visit.  Much easier putting in a zip code than trying to type in the village names.

The Pigeonnier in the Loire

This year it will only be "France dreaming" as my bothersome knee...like for the last year...is still bothersome.  I cannot guarantee that I can do a lot of walking, so with regret, we have opted to stay stateside this year.  But, that does not mean I cannot dream about our past trips...especially one six years ago, to the Loire Valley of France.

We have slept in a castle before..many years ago in Germany, so I was all for doing this again.  The Trout is such a fantastic researcher, so I let him do it all.  I enter the picture when it is time to choose between this or that.

This chateau sounded so perfect, but the topper was that there was a dovecote on the property available for rent.  A dovecote is a round, tall structure intended for pigeons or doves.  The inside is a mass of pigeon holes for the birds to nest.  An important food source in Western Europe, they were kept for eggs, flesh and dung.  In Scotland, the tradition is continued in urban areas.

The dovecote was called a colombier or fuie from the 13th century on and pigeonnier until the 19th century.  I have a few photos of where we stayed and this remarkable chateau.

We arrived in early May, for a week, and our cordial host has a fire going in the living room fireplace.  Flowers on the table.  Bottle of wine and glasses waiting.  We immediately were comfortable and felt at home.

The kitchen was small, as is typical in Europe, but everything we needed for a week was available including the washer under the kitchen counter.

There were two bedrooms in this amazing rental and we had the most beautiful one.  A King-sized bed and a balcony overlooking the back yard.

Welcome to Chateau La Vauguyon near Chinon, France, in the Loire Valley.

Our host, Celain, was a delight.  One afternoon, he drove us to two of his favorite wineries and introduced us to the owners.  He also gave us a tour of the grounds of the Chateau, caves and wells going back hundreds of years.

If you look at the above picture, in the foreground, you see some stakes.  Yes, oh yes, this is where a farmer grows white asparagus and many times during the week we would walk down there and buy the fresh, white asparagus for our dinner.  Very inexpensive and so very, very good.  I have often thought that one of the reasons we like to travel to Europe in the early spring is because of the white asparagus.

This was the view out of our upstairs bedroom.  Our host had imported many small deer for Russia and we enjoyed watching them early in the morning.

The big cities are lovely, but we have always loved the countryside and small villages.  Chinon is only a short distance from this lovely gite, and of course, the history of Joan of Arc is all over that city.

We did combine this week in the Loire Valley with a week in Normandy.  I hope you enjoyed my reliving our trip.  I think I feel better now.

"La Belle du bois dormant"

The Trout and I have one granddaughter, Rachel. Rachel was born in 2004, so when we went to France in 2006 and toured the Chateau d'Usse', I knew I had to take special pictures to remember this place for her. The chateau is in the Loire Valley of France, a beautiful part of the country where many chateaus dot the valleys and hills. But, you see, this was a very, very special castle. This was the castle of "La Belle du bois dormant", or "Sleeping Beauty."

We climbed up and up until we reached the top of the turret and there we found the sleeping quarters of "Sleeping Beauty." Even I was reliving my childhood and my imagination came alive. I saw the children's room where they had played with toys and a table was set for a child tea party. Disney had produced the entire film within the walls of this gorgeous chateau. I knew I had to make this special for our only granddaughter. We took pictures of the scenes that Disney still had set up in the castle, but the outside of this chateau was remarkable. This is a chateau built in the 14th century and in the 17th century, Charles Perrault wrote about Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty.

When we got back home, I purchased the book "Sleeping Beauty" and inside the cover, I put the pictures that we had taken of the real castle for Rachel, to enjoy as a child and to carry forward to her own children.

Just another chateau...

The first time this chateau came into view, our hearts beat faster and our mouths dropped open. This looked like a real castle and we were the little people who were going to be spending a week there.

Chateau de La Vauguyon is a gite we rented for a week in the Loire Valley, near Chinon, France. Actually if you click on the picture and enlarge it, we stayed in the dovecote, the totally renovated circular tower that many years ago housed pigeons. It is on the right of the picture.

It was a delightful stay and our host was very knowledgeable and even took us on a tour of some of his favorite vineyards. His English was perfect; unlike our miserable French.

Just below the property, we could walk to a farmer's field where they were harvesting the delicious white asparagus that are so loved in Europe. Talk about fresh!

Since we were there in 2006, we have had contact with our host, and he has added another gite in the main house.

We have been so fortunate to pick many lovely places to stay in France, all from research on the Internet, but this place has a special spot in my heart.