Chateaux to Visit in Loire and Degustations?

[Pixietoadstool]

Does anyone have any suggestions about towns/chateaux to visit in the Loire and convenient towns in the area for degustations and cheapish hotels.  I can go on the Logis de France website to locate hotels if anyone has any particular ideas.

My old schoolfriend (well not that old - she is younger than me!) and I are going to our house in Normandy for a week soon but I thought it would be a nice treat to do the wine thing - but I have never done it.  What do you do?  Does one just knock on a door and ask politely if you can try their wines - and can you expect to buy anything half decent at these places for say £3 a bottle (obviously I understand you need to buy by the case).

Another thing is that my friend is a red wine fanatic and I prefer white - are we likely to find wine producers close to each other that sell both/either/or red and white wines?  I am sorry to be so ignorant of the whole viniculture thing!!

Any advice will be MOST welcome (including anything I haven't yet considered which I need to).

Thanks!

Valerie

[Tourangelle]

If I were you, (and my name on here does indicate my preference!) I

would stay in  Tours for cheapish hotels.  It is big enough

for there to be a wide selection, and you can stay centrally enough to

be able to walk to numerous restaurants in the evening.  Look for

hotels between boulevard Herteloup/ boulevard Beranger and the Loire,

avoiding the immediate area around the cathedral and the train station

and you will find yourself in a nice central area.  From here you

can easily reach Vouvray (on the bus if required), for your white

wines, and Chinon and Borgeuil for the reds (you'll need a car). 

As you are driving around, you will see signs saying "dégustation", so

just pick out one you fancy.  You only need buy 6 bottles at a

time, and some will allow you to mix, say three of each.  

You can definitely find wine at 4 euros a bottle or even less. 

Some of the sparkling Vouvray is probably a bit more, but it is not a

very expensive area.

In terms of chateaux, it depends when exactly you are thinking of

going, but I think the ones to see are Azay-le-rideau and

Chenonceau.  These are both within easy reach of Tours.  If

you are travelling further afield, then Chambord is spectacular. 

Near Chinon is Ussé, which is pretty, and if you are going in spring,

you could go to Villandry, for the gardens rather than the

chateau.  Chinon is a nice place to stay if you want to go

somewhere smaller, you can't see the nuclear power station from the

town.  Amboise is also a small pleasant town, with a nice chateau,

which could be another place to stay.  I wouldn't go and stay in

either Azay le rideau or Chenonceau however gorgeous they look, because

they are tiny!  Hope this help[:)]

[Pixietoadstool]

Dear Tourangelle,

You have given me loads of information and help - thank you so much!

I particularly like your suggestion to go by bus to the white wine chateaux since I will be drinking there and then I can drive my friend who drinks the red to the red wine places (we are going in my car).  I have cut and pasted your advice and will now do some more research.  Another good idea about Tours is that we would be within staggering distance (:D) of our beds!!!  I expect we will have some kind of silly adventure - we normally do!

My main concern is going to a place for degustation and not liking anything and so going away without buying - embarrassed English person!!  Could you suggest decent producers of white wine in particular (I think it is easier to produce a drinkable red than a drinkable white - I must have poured gallons of French white wine down the drain bought in French supermarkets for maybe £3 but which was undrinkable!!).

Thanks again!

Valerie

[Teamedup]

Pixietoadstool, why did you chuck the wine away? and what do you like?

White wine varies so much from stuff I would even wonder about making vinegar with to delicious but it all depends what you like. There may be no white wines in the area you are visiting that you like at all as wines tend to be regional too.

 

[Pixietoadstool]

Well I like wines made with the sauvignon or chenin blanc or chardonnay grapes and so I do like Loire wines but so often they taste a bit corked or just too acidic or plain boring with no nose at all.  In the old days I enjoyed a nice Pouilly fume in restaurants (when we went out to dinner in UK) - I also have enjoyed some nice Vouvrays (and some horrid ones) and some drinkable Sancerres.  Chablis can be absolutely disgusting or delightful but often a bit too dry and uninteresting for my palate.

Well there you go then!  What do you like to drink?

Valerie

[Lori]

Why do you have to buy 6 bottles??  Here, (dept. Vaucluse 84), you

can taste and buy nothing - no embarrassement - or buy only one

bottle.  There are no requirements on buying - or not.  Have

visited other departments too and have never seen a requirement. 

Is this somehting posted on the door upon entry?

Just curious.

[Teamedup]

I agree, if you don't like, don't buy or just buy one if you are not sure.

 

[Tourangelle]

I am afraid I take a rather relaxed approach and just go to the one I

fancy as I go past, and I can't remember any names.  But in

Vouvray there is a wine museum, which is quite small, but interesting,

they explain how they bottle the sparkling stuff and so on, and have

some of the old equipment and of course give you a taste, so it is a

good starting point.  It is attached to a vineyard, but as you pay

for the museum, you don't feel you have to buy.  I should have

said, the bus out to Vouvray is just an ordinary one, and takes the

ordinary tickets that work on all the buses in Tours, I remember being

perplexed about this myself when I did it, I couldn't believe it didn't

cost more because we seemed to be going so far, but it is just on a

regular bus ticket!  I have never actually not wanted to buy any

wine when I have been to taste, because of course they don't just have

you tasting the one bottle, but it could be 5 or 6 from different

years, so if generally you like that sort of wine, you wont want to

come away empty handed![:D]

[Thumper]

If you're heading to Chinon, then go that little bit further west and try some of the Saumur wines - the sparkling, of course, but also the reds are good, so might keep you both happy. Most of the major sparkling producers (Gratien & Meyer comes to mind, as well as Veuve Amiot) are geared up to visitors, and several offer the novelty of being "troglodyte" caves, built into the hillsides along the Loire. I'd guess you'd make Saumur from Tours in about 40 minutes by car, and the road you'll travel follows the river and offers plenty of invitations to deviate towards chateaux and other tempting degustation opportunities. There's also the train to consider if you don't fancy driving?

The castle at Chinon is well worth exploring, and there's a vinyard by the entrance. Two birds with one stone!

[Pixietoadstool]

Thankyou Thumper and Tourangelle - I have cut and pasted your words of wisdom and am creating a very useful guide for my trip next week!

Merci bien!