Trip to Loire Valley and Champagne - Day 1

Time flies! It is the second time I traveled with my friends to France for a wine and gastronomy tour. Last time we have visited Bourgogne, Alsace and Bordeaux. But this time we turned to another two wine producing regions: Loire Valley and Champagne. Let's start our journey with my wife Ivy, MBA buddy Benny, WSET classmate Grace and friend Carmen!

Arriving Paris, our dear friend and driver David picked us up at the airport. After meeting Grace at her hotel in St-Germain, without wasting any time, we drove to the Loire Valley, on the comfortable Benz 7-seater, spending the 3.5-hour ride chatting happily, before arriving at our first stop - Chinon.

On the bank of River Vienne, we boarded a traditional boat called "toue cabanee", which has a very flat bottom to navigate the Loire river. As the boat cruised slowly on the river, with us basking on the sun and nice breeze, we enjoyed the introduction of the wines from the owner of Domaine de Noire - Jean-Max Manceau, who is also the president of the Chinon AOC.

There are five different wines we have tasted, all made from 100% Cabernet Franc, including a sparkling rose, a dry still rose, and three dry red from different soils (Soif de Tendresse, Elegance and Caractere), exhibiting really different characters. The wines were all really nice, and although Ivy did not drink wine, it happened that Jean-Max also brought a grape juice from his estate (Jus de raisin), which we all liked very much!

Enjoying the wines together and having a nice chat about the wine region of Chinon, we also had a good meal eating some cold specialties of the area, prepared by a famous local chef (I forgot the name). There were different delicacies, but I like the pork and foie gras the most. With such good food to start off, I already got the feeling that after this trip we would all be gaining a lot of weight...

After saying goodbye to Jean-Max, we met up with our local guide Susi to walk to the famous Royal Fortress of Chinon. Recently completing the renovation in 2010, this fortress has a long history, with the first stone tower erected back in 954AD. What also attracted my attention was that this fortress was where Henry II Plantagenet resided and died, back in the 12th century.

If you studied FWS, you will remember Henry as the Count of Anjou who later married Eleanor of Aquitaine, thus getting to own a large area in France while later also becoming King of England. This has a lot of bearings for the wine industry development for Bordeaux in fact. In the garden, we can still find a tombstone of Henry II.

But apart from Henry II, there was also a famous person who visited this fortress - Joan of Arc. According to history, she came to Chinon to meet Charles VII on 1429AD, and it was believed that the meeting took place in this fortress. But unfortunately the hall had already collapsed, and we could only see the wall where the hall was used to be.

We had a good walk around the fortress, climbing up different towers and going down the stairs which was supposed to go all the way to the city (the fortress is located on a hill). There were some creepy feelings when Benny and me went down the stairs to the underground, and the ladies in fact decided to just stay in the garden to relax.

Finishing our adventure in the Royal Fortress, we went to our hotel. Instead of taking the van, our guide led us through a walk in the city of Chinon, to see the old houses and special building designs of this historic town. Going inside private residence and gardens, we were fortunate that we had Susi to guide us or otherwise we would have missed out a lot of the interesting spots.

Checking in our hotel Agnes Sorel, we were greeted by a friendly French lady who came from Paris to operate this small hotel. Located on the riverbank, we got a nice view to River Vienne and the room is nicely decorated. Benny even got an attic room which was also interesting. We all took a brief rest before heading to dinner.

As this is a gastronomy tour also, we decided to go to nice restaurants and thus have chosen Cafe de la Paix on the riverbank for our first dinner. The meals were wonderful as you can see from the photos taken. We all had a full belly before going back to our hotel, looking forward to more good experience in this trip.