Tagged with "Loire valley"

Adding stout instead of wine and then prunes towards the end of cooking gives a delicious rich casserole that is perfect in the run up to Christmas.

Wine professionals often talk about residual sugar in wine but the average wine drinker is a little unclear about what this term actually means.

French people are very secretive about mushrooms. They don’t let on where you can find them in case you go and pinch them yourselves.

For two nights in August, the centre of Saumur becomes the biggest restaurant in the world as thousands gather for the annual celebration of Saumur Champigny and its wines over a delightful open air dinner on the banks of the river Loire.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen the Loire so low in the 11 years that we’ve lived here. It was pretty low in 2011 but I don’t think it’s been this low.

Sadly I have to report that after an extraordinarily difficult year in 2016 due to frost, the Loire has yet again been hit hard in 2017.

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.

Pruning in the Loire valley

I made a batch of these spicy samosas yesterday for an apéro dinatoire with friends in the hamlet.

Bâttonage is the French word for stirring the ‘lees’

If you’ve never been up in a hot air balloon, I can wholeheartedly suggest you give it try in the Loire valley.

A few things that you might not know about the Loire valley.