The prospect of a wine tasting hastened the morning ride to Bourgeuil…
As a young student buried in books at the University of Tours in the 1970s, I never visited Bourgeuil. Now, with forty years and a few wine bottles under the bridge, the chance to enjoy some wines there was ‘incontournable’ – not to be missed!
The Trucker put in a strenuous morning shift getting from the Loir to the Loire. We had pleasant company over the final twenty kilometres, having caught up with a chatty and thankfully not particularly fast cyclist from Bourgeuil out on a training ride.
Bourgeuil is a small town on the north bank of the lower Loire river. The area comprises two wine appellations, Bourgeuil and St Nicholas de Bourgeuil, which produce red wine from the Cabernet Franc grape. As an introduction to the local wines, I headed to the Cave du Pays de Bourgeuil.
This ‘Cave’ is truly a cave, dug deep into a limestone hillside. It is a museum of wine growing in the region. The tools of the trade over the centuries – presses, barrels, implements, hand carts – are on display, with informative photos from the past. It also houses a tasting room where a group of about ten of us, mostly people from northern France returning home after a summer holiday in the sunny south, were greeted by a charming and informative host.
The Cabernet Franc grape, she told us, originates in Bordeaux. It came to the Loire valley after 1152 when Henry Plantagenet married Eleanor of Aquitaine, thus uniting all of western France under one rule. The vine established itself quickly and has produced distinctively pleasant wines since.
The site faces south and the upward slope from the river is divided into three distinct zones: a sandy zone by the river produces light fruity wines best drunk young; a band of gravel which produces wines with body, hinting of strawberries and cherries; and an uppermost zone on a limestone base producing slow maturing and longer lasting wine underpinned by good tannins. Of course, much tasting was required to appreciate these differences!
Our host was most helpful about the local restaurants. I found L’Ecu de France which uses local products suited beautifully to the regional wine.
Having set up camp in the middle of the day, my rear panniers had space. A few bottles rattled and clinked on the ride back into town.
Tuesday 27 August 2013
