Our guests Christopher, Dermot, Scott, Brenda, Janet and Tanya.
At Manoir de Gourin our Monday supper evenings are eagerly anticipated by our guests each week and yesterday was no exception with three couples joining us for an evening of fun and enjoyment with some delicious home cooked food from Karin and a great selection of local wines.
Brenda and Dermot, Tanya and Scott, and Janet and Christopher were instantly in conversation the moment they met on the terrace to toast the evening with a Vin Mousseux Qualite from Chateau de Brossay. 'Le Cerisier' a sparkling red made from three grape varieties. Cabernet Franc, Gamay, and Grolleau. A great entrance to the evening.
Our supper was indoors as the evening was cool and the entree was a goats cheese on puff pastry with Beetroot and lambs lettuce with a balsamic vinegar dressing. Main was pork fillet with caramalised apple, sauted mushrooms with seasonal veg, then the cheese course, a creme brulee dessert and finally coffee.
Wines served were Saumur blanc, Saumur Rouge and Cabernet de Saumur from Domaine de L'Enchantoir, a sweet Coteaux du Layon from Domaine de la Saugourde and a sparkling red from Chateau de Brossay. A great evening that lastest well into the night! Cheers.
Richard the winemaker at Chaintres with some of our guests
A swift visit to Chateau de Chaintres today to pick up our display board for the introduction talk as I left it behind after our three ladies wine tour on Monday. We have a tour booked on Tuesday next. Richard Desouche filled me in on the current vintages. So the 2011 'Domaine' has been quietly ageing in the chai stainless steel vats. Last week the cuvees were filtered and returned to the vats ready for bottling. The 2011 'Chateau' has been ageing in the stainless steel vats since both fermentation of alcohol and malo-lactic some 6 months ago. This has now been fed by gravity to the concrete vats in the old caves for ageing in the cool environment. They will age for 3 to 4 months before bottling. The 2010 'Oratorien' has been in barrels since vinification and on 9 May, a fruit day in the biodynamic calendar, Richard transferred the wine back into the vats for mixing and settlement before bottling. The 2011 pink cabernet de Saumur was bottled in March (on a fruit day). The 2009 sparkling Cremant de Loire is as fruity and creamy as the 2008 and ready for drinking now. Our tastings confirms that the 2011 vintage was as good as the 2010. So another year of Loire wines to savour. Cheers.
Our wine tour guests at Combier distillery
Three lovely ladies descended upon Saumur by train to partake on one of our day wine tours and did they look apprehensive when I met them at the station but wow how it turned out to be a wonderful day and to boot they bought the sunshine with them so we were able to picnic on the terrace outside taking in the wonderful view of the Saumur Champigny vineyards.
So lets start at the beginning. Friends Ashild and Siw from Norway and Janelle from America came from Paris via Angers to Saumur where I met them at the station in the morning for the start of our wine tour for the day. We travelled to Chateau de Chaintres where over coffee in the tasting room I gave a talk on the wines of the Loire valley. As I explained at the beginning my intention is to impart just sufficient information to allow guests to retain and usefully be able to use in the future say when confronted with a wine list that contains Loire Valley wines and know as far as possible the style of the wine. Obviously there are nuances like year and grape variety but the great thing about Loire wines is that by and large a particular appellation contains the same grape variety and the style unless specifically aged in oak is similar albeit there are nuances between estates and parcels even.
After our talk Richard Desouches the wine maker met us in the vineyard and after explaining the terroir and styles produced from the different parcels, we were shown the wineroom. Richard talked about the different vinification methods of the estate reds, pink and white and we then descended into the depths of the cellars where the cuvee 'Oratorien' reds and whites are ageing in old barrels. Then to the chai and the tasting room for a run through the range of wines that the estate makes.
Our lunch as I said was on the terrace with Richard enjoying some home cooked food from Karin which the ladies enjoyed with a glass or three of the estate wines.
It was Au revoir to Chaintres and on to the sparkling wine house of Gratien and Meyer with a visit to the caves and a tasting of the wines.
Our final visit was to the distillery of Combier in Saumur. The ladies had a private tour of the still room followed by a goodly tasting of a selection of the Combier liquers and cremes. A great end to a wonderful day. Our pic is of the ladies 'mucking about' in the Combier still room. Eiffel would be amused!
Richard Desouche at Chaintres with our guests
We have two guests touring tomorrow from Norway with a friend from Paris. We are off to tour Saumur Champigny country to our favourite estate Chateau de Chaintres in the morning followed by a picnic overlooking the vineyards with the winemaker Richard Desouche. We'll start with an introduction talk I will give in the reception room over coffee which covers the history of the Loire valley wines, the appellations, styles and grape varieties from Nantes to Sancerre. In the afternoon we will take in a couple of the sparkling wine houses Gratien and Mayer and Ackerman or Veuve Amiot. We'll do the cave visit at Gratien as they take guests through the stages of making sparkling wine. So should be a good informative day. I will report tomorrow. Cheers.
The Puy Notre Dame in the vat with the parcel names written on the vat door.
Our visit on Sunday last to Domaine de L'Enchantoir, Loire Valley, France allowed us to taste the current vintages from winemaker Pierre Van Den Boom. There were 9 of us in total Maggi and Peter, Liz and Roy, Sally and John, Francoise and us Simon and Karin. We worked through the range starting with the Saumur Blanc 'Chenin de Chavannes' a balance slightly towards acidity, Saumur Blanc aged for 24 months in old oak barrels giving a rounded smooth dry white of complex tannins. Cabernet de Saumur a dry pink made from cabernet franc, Cabernet d'Anjou a medium pink fruity and fresh for a hot summer fun day in the garden, Saumur rouge 'Le ligerien' a light fruity red for drinking on its own, Saumur Puy Notre Dame 'Le Pied a l'Etrier' a more complex cabernet franc with a deeper fruit palette with more tannins developed over an ageing process in the vats. A wine for a lamb or Chicken dish. Saumur Puy Notre Dame 'Clos de Peit Chavannes' an oak aged wine left in old oak barrels for 24 months to develop the tannins. Pierre now has three sparkling wines: white, pink and red. We tried the red with the sweet course of a great spread of food for the occasion. The recipe is simple. Put stawberries into a bowl and add the red bubbly. Simple. Soupe de Fraise. Cheers.
The vines are Enchantoir
Tomorrow is an important day for Domaine de L'Enchantoir in Saumur country Loire valley France with the annual open day for the publlic to visit and try the wines. We are going along with a load of friends Peter and Maggie, Sally and John, Roy and Liz, Francoise, Inger and Colin. The weather is awful at the moment so we will meet in the large reception room at Enchantoir and have a great time together whilst enjoying the wines and the food Pierre and Brigitte Van den Boom will put on for their guests. I'll report back on our day. Cheers.
Overlooking the vineyards of Saumur at Puy Notre Dame
Our season has started in France for wine touring in the vineyards and estates of the wine growers of the Loire valley. Our first guests arrive on 7 May and we will be touring the Saumur Champigny area at Chateau de Chaintres where we will hold the introduction talk over coffee followed by a tour of the vineyard, the wine room and ending up at the tasting room with the wine maker Richard Desouches. Richard will then host lunch and in the afternoon we will then tour the famous sparkling wine houses of Saumur including a tour of the caves. It will be a full day of touring and tasting. Cheers.
Posted by:
Simon on: April 22 2012 • Categorized in:
facts
Troglyodite cave dwellings in Loire, France.
The season for mildew will be starting soon and the two types Downy and Powdery are treated with two separate chemicals. Downy is treated with Copper traditionally by the Bordeaux mixture or bouillie bordelaise which contains Lime, Copper sulphate and water. Powdery called Oidium Tuckerii after a Mr Tucker who first found it in Margate, England is treated with Sulphur and LIme mixture.
There is a story about Bordeaux mixture that the wine growers would spray their vines in Bordeaux along the road with copper to deter people helping themselves and it was noticed that these vines did not suffer from mildew.
This season it looks like Downy mildew will be affecting the vines. Cheers.
Our wine tour guests enjoying an evening on the terrace of Manoir
This year we continue our very popular fully escorted residential wine tours from Manoir de Gourin in th Loire Valley, France. If you are interested please log onto our website www.loirewinetours.com to see the range of tours we offer to guests from all over the world. Last year we had Canadians, Americans, New Zealanders, Australians, Zambians, Irish and British guests who without exception all enjoyed the friendly and relaxed informative talks and tours to the estates of Anjou and Saumur wine producers. The tours are geared to gently help to develop knowledge of the wines of the Loire valley. We have some wonderful testimonials from guests. We hope you will have a look to see what we have to offer you. Cheers.
An old wine shop in Saumur, Loire Valley, France
We had a day out today and tried a new restaurant in Saumur. Le Pot de Lapin run by Oliver who is very helpful and friendly. Enjoyed the meal and a good pot of Saumur Champigny if a litle fresh. It needed another year in the vat to develop the tannins.
Thereafter it was over to Chateau de Chaintres for a meeting with Richard Desouche the estate director and winemaker to discuss the forthcoming London International Wine Fair which we are attending with Richard to promote the chateau wines with the trade. More about this in another blog and about the 2011 vintage. Apparently the Cabernet de Saumur of 2011 is out of this world. We took a bottle to taste and will let you know the result.
Anyway I asked Richard about the forthcoming vintage and he mentioned that it was going to be a cold and dry summer. How do you know that I asked? Well he said if on the Sunday before Easter called Rameaux the wind is from the north east the summer will be cold and dry. Have you noticed the Magpies? No I said. Well they have started to build their nests high in the trees. OK. Well that means its going to be dry as they do not need so much protection from the tree canopy. Well there you are lets see what transpires. Cheers.
