Tagged with "Loire valley wines"

You might think that not much goes on in the vineyard in December but in fact it can often be a busy month. There are lots of tasks that need to be tackled.

We’ve been living in the Loire for 12 years now and this is the first year that we have seen smiles on the faces of growers all over the region.

While most of the Cab Francs have been brought in in the appellations of Chinon, Bourgueil and St Nicolas de Bourgueil there are still grapes hanging on the vines in Anjou.

As it’s been warm enough to eat outside this week we enjoyed a simple dinner of home made burgers, roasted garlicky plum tomatoes and a fresh green salad. L’Envolée from Gérald Vallée was our wine of choice.

There is a lot you can gather from just looking at a wine. Tip the glass at an angle of 45°C preferably against a white background and take a look. What can you see?

Many of you will have tasted Peter Hahn’s lovely Vouvrays while you have been with us at le tasting room. I’m happy to say that he has launched an on-line facility and his wines are now available on-line in Europe and France for delivery. 

Sabrer une bouteille de Crémant. To open a bottle of Crémant with a sabre or sword. Lots of fun for special celebrations.

Ok, so you’re staying in Angers in the Loire and you love wine and you think ‘right, it’s Sunday tomorrow, let’s go wine tasting’.

An article this morning that I reposted made me think that I would write a few words of my own about the growing number of ‘natural’ sparkling wines on the market today

2016 turned out to be a very tricky year for them with miniscule yeilds of around 6hl/ha.

There are different ways to prune vines. Here in the Loire in Anjou we see a lot of Single Guyot and Double Guyot pruning, a cane replacement system.

Bâttonage is the French word for stirring the ‘lees’