Tagged with "Anjou"
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Tailor-made wine days in the Loire
Whether you’re in the Loire on holiday, staying in Paris, with family and friends or business colleagues – a day in the beautiful Loire countryside is always good for the soul.
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Le Thoureil early morning
It was such a beautiful morning that I popped down to the river early this morning to walk Sybil . Le Thoureil is one of the prettiest villages perched on the river Loire half way between Angers and Saumur and just a 15 minute walk from our home.
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The sweet wines of the Loire valley
Naturally produced sweet wines require lots of hard work in the vineyard. Chenin Blanc is so suited to sweet wine with its naturally high acidity and lovely grapefruity bitterness that comes from sinking its roots deep into the schistous slaty soils of Anjou (its great on limestone too!).
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Domaine Leduc Frouin – Anjou
Sometimes you find a small family run domaine that makes wines that tick all the boxes. Leduc Frouin falls into this category – the wines are great value for money, the welcome at the domaine is always warm, it’s run by a tight family unit of brother, sister and mum and the wines are always reliable, pure, well made.
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Slate & Anjou
When we present the wines of the Loire valley to our guests, we always speak of the slate so I feel sad that we can no longer boast that Angers has the last working slate mine in France.
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Favourite restaurants in Angers – Le Relais
For true French style, great food and a good wine list, Le Relais in Angers is hard to beat.
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Frederic Mabileau
Frederic Mabileau has 28 hectares in the St Nicholas de Bourgueil, Bourgueil, Saumur and Anjou appellations. Since 2005 all grapes have been hand harvested and then sorted again on arrival at the winery to ensure only the best quality grapes are selected . Today the vineyards are all certified organic and the domaine embraces the bio-dynamic approach in an attempt to try and preserve the delicate balance between the vine and its environment.
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Loire Wine Discovery Tour in the Coteaux du Layon
The Coteaux du Layon is perhaps most famous for its wonderful sweet wines but producers in Anjou have a wide palate to play with so tend to make many other styles of wine too including sparkling, dry white, rosé and red. The landscape is quite different to elsewhere in the Loire valley and is well worth a visit on foot, by car or cycling through the vineyards.
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Cabernet Franc in Anjou
It’s interesting to see how the vintage year has such an impact upon vine development. In 2011 the Cabernet Franc sprung into action early and by the end of May they were in full flower. In 2012 you can see that the vines have not reached that point and this year we are even further behind with the lack of sunshine throughout May. We count 100 days from flowering to harvest so it looks like we’ll be picking considerably later this year.