Bonjour toute le monde! Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Cépage et Cuisine, Mary’s and Brian’s wine and food blog. Monday, May 16 was our Chinon day. It started with our usual stroll to the boulangerie for a croissant for Mary. Then we set out for Chinon, about an hour’s drive to the east and right on the Loire River. The Loire is the longest river in France, over 600 miles, and encompasses an enormous variety of wine growing appellations. What impressed me as we drove along is the vastness. We saw endless flat plains, rolling hills, and steep climbs, much in contrast to the smaller, more intimate character of the Burgundy landscape. The farms and vineyards in the Loire can be huge, but the terroir varies widely with different soil types and microclimates.
Our first appointment was at Domaine Bernard Baudry, a few kilometers outside Chinon. Monsieur Matthieu Baudry, the son of Bernard Baudry, met us for the tasting and tour, along with couples from England and South Africa. This was a highly educational tasting experience. Matthieu reviewed the different terroir of their wines and had soil samples on display at the tasting room to illustrate his points. Some were more limestone, some more gravel, or sand, or clay. Some were from alluvial plains, some from hillsides. All of the wines were excellent with great structure, balance, and vivid flavors of Cabernet Franc, but the differences among the wines due to terroir were obvious. He does not use extensive oak on his wines, does not farm with chemicals, does not use cultured yeasts, instead allows native yeasts to conduct fermentation. He discussed how wines of Chinon have greater tannins than wines of other Loire red wine appellations. At the end of the tasting he opened a 1997 to show the effect of age and the ageworthiness of his wines. I felt privileged!
The Baudry maison or family home is adjacent to the caves and in the photo below you see some of the estate vineyards outside their gate.
We drove to the second appointment to make sure we knew where it was before we looked for a place for lunch. It was in the village of Sazilly, across the river and south of Chinon. Sazilly is little more than a few homes, but there was a small restaurant and bar, Chez Domi. It didn’t look like much, but the only alternative was to drive back to a larger town several kilometers away, so we went in.
It was immediately apparent that this was the genuine article, a simple roadside café in rural French winegrowing country. The floors were wood planks. The tables had vinyl coverings with one long table down the middle of the room. “Real” men were eating lunch, men with dusty boots, heavy work clothes, tear-the-bread-apart-and-sop-your-plate men, elbows-on-the-table men. This ain’t no Auprés du Clocher in Pommard. When we walked in with our camera and French language books, they stopped talking and gave us that, “you’re not from around here” look. Someone said something that I interpreted to mean, “sit wherever you want,” so we did.
The charcuterie was delicious thinly-sliced jambon, or ham, not the typical cured ham we see at home, more like prosciutto. There was also sliced saucisse, like a salami.
The usual basket of bread appeared. What was different for us was the appearance of a bottle of local Chinon, unlabeled, unasked, and small tumbler glasses, no fancy wine stems here. Every other table had the same unlabeled bottle. If you eat there, they put a bottle of wine on your table. It’s part of the deal, like in the South when I was a boy and breakfast included grits whether you ordered them or not. I don’t know how common this is nowadays because we haven’t seen it in other cafés, but I suspect it is or was traditional in the countryside.
The pork was not sautéed like I think of sautéed. It was more like a braise, absolutely fork tender, moist, and flavorful. We both marveled at it.
We both had coffee. Mary had the petit café. I had the grand. We requested l’addition, the bill, and were then directed to the bar next door to pay. We told the bartender how much we enjoyed the food, and he managed to communicate that his wife was the cook. She came out, we said, “dejeuner est délicieux!” She was so happy at the compliment, she did a little dance right there behind the bar! Lunch at a nondescript small town roadside café turned out to be an event! The whole thing … appetizer, main course, cheese or dessert, bread, wine, coffee … was 12€ per person.
We went to the cellar with Madame Catherine Roger Eck who tasted us through the current vintage. Like the wines of Domaine Baudry, the wines of Domaine Joguet showed excellent tannic structure, the distinct floral, fruit, and fresh minerality of Cabernet Franc from Chinon, and excellent balance. We’re looking forward to enjoying more of this wine in the future if we can find it.
Before leaving the area, we drove the few kilometers back up the river to Chinon, the town. This is probably the prettiest place we have visited in the Loire Valley. It is an old fortress town, perched on the bluff overlooking the river, which you see in these photos. We enjoyed walking along the river and browsing the shops. This would be a nice place to stay for a vacation in the area, lots of amenities and beautiful, but not as centrally located as Saumur and Le Puy Notre Dame.
Dinner was at Le Bouchon Ponot, the one and only restaurant in Le Puy Notre Dame. It is quite small, perhaps a dozen tables plus a couple on the sidewalk. It is quite literally a checkered tablecloth establishment, very casual, very local. Mag, maybe short for Magdeleine, was the only server and a part owner. The chef was in the kitchen and invisible to us. The menu and the carte des vin are both on a chalkboard.
Mary had a sorbet and we both had the usual coffee.
The wine list was very limited and mostly locally produced wines, which was fine with us. At Mag’s suggestion we tried a Saumur rouge by Domaine de la Girardrie right here in Le Puy Notre Dame. It was delicious and paired well with the local cuisine. It was quite young, a 2009, but already approachable. Here are my notes on the wine.
Domaine de la Girardrie Saumur Instinct 2009. This was a younger wine than we tried a couple of days ago, but it was approachable and round. The aroma profile showed dark fruit character, but also some of the currant or cassis I associate with Cabernet Franc. The palate was velvety, not rough, soft, with low to medium acidity. The flavor profile showed dark berries, plum, and currants. Although low in acidity, it was still quite low in alcohol, only 12.5%. It was adequately balanced, moderately complex, medium in length. A nice experience with dinner in La Puy Notre Dame. Wines like this are an example of one of the things we have learned about wines of Burgundy and wines of this part of the Loire Valley, which is it is possible to achieve optimal phenolic ripeness of grapes at sugar levels that allow the alcohol level to remain low. It’s great for enjoying a bottle of wine without feeling fatigued or sluggish afterward. We paid 16€ for this wine.
The walk back to the gite took us past the church at dusk, which is almost 10:00 p.m. at this latitude and time of year. Mary captured this beautiful picture from just outside Le Bouchon Ponot.
That’s our post for today. We hope you find our notes about wine, food, and culture in France to be interesting. Keep checking back at Cépage et Cuisine for more reports over the next week. In the meantime,
Cheers!
Mary♥Brian
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