Tagged with "Vouvray"

The official go-ahead for harvest in the Vouvray appellation has been given but several growers requested permission to start a little earlier

We have a mobile wine bar that comes to the village every Wednesday evening. The wines are interesting and include wines from the Loire and elsewhere in France.

So, we’re off again here in the Loire. We have floraison or flowering in the vines!

Growers who choose not to use chemicals to control weeds underneath the vines ‘work’ the soil mechanically or occasionally use a horse.

Unprecedented temperatures in the Loire valley this past two weeks have had growers pruning in their shorts and dreading an early budburst. The older generation can’t remember a February when the temperatures have been this high for so long.

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. 

Beautiful, beautiful spring weather this weekend in the Loire. Full sunshine and temperatures of around 17° in Vouvray made it feel like early summer.

The 2014 vintage is drawing to a close here in the Loire with the last passes through the vineyards of the Layon taking place over the weekend. Some Chenin was still hanging in the Layon on Sunday but I dare say with the break in the weather today and strong rain, this marks the end of the harvest for most people.

This year we are hoping mother nature will be a little kinder to our growers here in the Loire. After 2 really hard years, they deserve an easier time in 2014.

We were there to catch up with Bernard Fouquet of Domaine des Aubuissieres, one of the top growers in the region and whose wines we regularly include in our tutored Loire wine tastings here at le tasting room. Bernard estimates that he has lost the equivalent of 60,000 bottles this year due to the hailstorm of June 17th 2013.