LOIRE VINEYARDS

The Loire valley is famous for its wine and many of our visitors take the opportunity to visit a few vineyards when they're here on holiday. It's easy and fun to buy wine or just have a 'tasting'.

Moulin de Maulne holiday cottages are ideally placed for visiting the different Loire wine appellations so, whatever your preference; white, rosé, sparkling or red, you can find a wine that suits you.

The vineyards come in all shapes and sizes too. There are small family-run vineyards where you can try out your french as well as the wine to the large, professional 'houses' where you can join an english-speaking tour and taste the wine in tasting house.

Bourgueil is our closest wine area, specialising in light red wines. Pepé Sansom is our contact, in his mid 70's and a real character, he's an experience in himself! He only sells his wines to friends of the family and always makes his visitors very welcome. His tastings are done in the actual caves where the wine is stored in ancient barrels.

The wines of St Nicolas de Bourgueil are typically richer and earthier than those of Bourgueil. It is a small region but its reputation extends beyond France in wine circles.

There are large and small producers of red, white and sparkling around Saumur and Saumur Champigny.

Bouvet-Ladubay in Saumur is a large sparkling wine producer, owned by one of the champagne houses. They do a great tour around their caves with a tasting afterwards. Their red sparkling wine is particularly good.

A little further south of Saumur is one of the prettiest villages in the Loire, Montreuil-Bellay. The village is home to Château de la Durandière who, despite winning a gold medal for their sparkling white in 2006, are extremely friendly and welcoming to all visitors regardless of wine knowledge or how much they're buying.

To the east of Moulin de Maulne is Vouvray, whose sparkling and dessert wines are internationally acclaimed. There is a huge variety of different producers in the area. Huet is one of the most notable, producing wonderful sparkling and dessert wine, at a price!

Chinon wines are popular in the UK. This is a bigger region and chinon wines have different characteristics depending on where you go. Château de la Roche is a family run business specialising in organic wine.

Azay-le-Rideau is notable for its rosé wines but it also produces some white and sparkling. Thierry Besard is a local producer of Touraine/Azay-le-Rideau red, white, rosé and sparkling, who speaks English. Tastings are done in the equivalent of his garden shed and his vineyards are at the bottom of the lane. He sells a particularly good white sparkling wine.

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