Awards and citations:


1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Sunday 9 May 2010

Wineries not to be missed?

River Indre in Loches passing the George Sand hotel and restaurant


 A message received yesterday:

'Dear Jim,
I just stumbled across your blog about loire valley wines. My family and I will be traveling to Loire soon. Specifically, we are staying near Loches for a week. We love our wine but are by no means experts. I was wondering if you might give me some suggestions of wineries not to be missed. With so many options I am a bit overwhelmed. Any info you could pass on would be of great help however, please do not feel obligated to respond. I know you must get lots of questions like this. Thank you so much.'

**

Loches is a little way out from the Loire's main wine producing areas. For instance both Vouvray and Chinon are about an hour's drive away with Montlouis slightly closer at around 50 minutes. Closer are the two main producers of Touraine Noble Joué – Jean-Jacques Sard and Rousseau Frères in Esvres about half an hour away from Loches in the direction of Tours. Noble Joué is a little known but long established rosé made from three Pinots – Noir, Meunier and Gris. Of the two Rousseau is the larger concern with nearly 20 hectares of vines offering a range of other wines as well as Noble Joué. 

Also around 30 minutes away from Loches are the producers in the Cher Valley. People to visit would include Jean-François Mériau (Vignobles des Bois Vaudons) in Saint-Julien-de-Chédon and Vincent Ricard in Thésée.  

Going further afield then Jacky Blot's Domaine de la Taille aux Loups in Husseau (Montlouis) where you can buy his Vouvray and Bourgueil as well as Montlouis is certainly recommended as is the François Chidaine's La Cave Insolite in Montlouis. 

Across the river in Vouvray my choices include Domaine Huet, Champalou, Foreau, Bernard Fouquet (Domaine des Aubuisières) and Alexandre Monmousseau's Château Gaudrelle, whose tasting room and winery in now at the western end of Rochecorbon

If you decide to go to Chinon my choices would include Baudry-Dutour (tasting room in Cravant-les-Coteaux), Charles Joguet (Sazilly), Domaine de Noblaie (Jérôme Billard in Ligré) and Château de Coulaine (Etienne and Pascale Bonnaventure in Beaumont-en-Véron).

There are many other possibilities and much depends upon how far you want to drive and how many places you wish to visit. Mentioning them all would make for a very long post! 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much Jim! This list should keep us quite busy and very happy!

Strokey beard Mark said...

This is invaluable Jim -just the sort of thing that many of us will be trying to put together as we plan our summers.
Kudos.

Mark

Jim's Loire said...

Thanks Anon and Mark.

Wink Lorch said...

Great summary, Jim.

And, for any of your readers who might struggle with some of the less informative websites of the wineries (and/or those only in French), Jim includes a description of most of these wineries (and there are contact details, GPS coordinates and map) and much more on the East of Tours guide he writes for the Wine Travel Guides website - all free to view (you only pay if you want to download the PDF for ease of printing ... and it's not much!).

Jim's Loire said...

Thanks for the reminder, Wink.