Pouilly Fume 'Les Champlins' 2006

So Mark Cavendish has gone home to rest up ahead of the Olympics, but the Tour goes on, and the new format seems to be keeping things interesting. Today's winner was Cyril Dessel, a French AG2R rider. He used to race for Jelly Belly - I could ride for them.

Time for a French wine. We had a Pouilly Fume 'Les Champlins' 2006. I've cycled through Pouilly sur Loire, it's pretty flat, not like today's stage. 2006 was wet. Very wet. You can just see my panniers wearing their little raincoats outside the Chateau in the centre of town.

The 'Les Champlins' is pretty good despite the rain. It's steely in that mineral way that the Loire has perfected, with some lemon and lime balanced by a weird but good honeyed apricot kinda thing going on. At 12% alcohol it's easy drinking stuff. At about £7.50 it's a reasonable price for this appellation.

Tour Des Vins Sancerre

We found ourselves short of white wine, with drinkers heading in from the north. We needed to stock up, but had neither the time nor the energy to head out for a proper shopping trip. We walked around to 'Bargain Booze' and took out chances.

Beyond the 3 for ��10 offers on Blossom Hill and Echo Falls we found a tiny section of the fridge in the back which had an interesting, if ageing, selection. One of our choices was Bartyon & Guestier's Tour des Vins Sancerre 2004.

It tasted likea basic Sancerre should with a minerally zip and tense fruit, although it seemed to be softening a little. It went well with the salmon and salad we had for tea. At ��8 it was well priced for a corner store Sancerre. It's not a brand I'd actively seek out, but I certainly wouldn't reject it.

Premiere Sauvignon Blanc From The Loire

The Paris-Nice cycle race is underway and men in brightly coloured lycra are whizzing through streets that I bimbled through slowly in the cold rain as I cycled my way along the Loire. One of the things that kept me going was the promise of a decent glass of wine at the end of each day's ride. We mmostly opted for a jug of house white along the way, and in the sections covered by the Pro-teams for the last couple of days that was Sauvignon Blanc.

The closest I've had to those refreshing cold wines back home is Premiere Sauvignon Blanc Vin de Pays du Jardin de la France. It's dry with a high acidity and tastes of fresh grass with grapefruit. The flavour isn't overly intense, and it has a medium body matched by a medium alcohol level. It's about £4 a bottle, which is probably double what we paid in bars for similar quantities fresh out of the tap.

It's not the best Sauvignion Blanc in the world, in France, or even in the Loire, but it tastes like the kind of wine you would be drinking whilst eating your dinner, looking out through the rain at the Loire as it rolls past.

Fond of wine

Sometimes a wine appeals because the label looks nice, sometimes because it comes from somewhere you've been and sometimes because the name is perfect. Sometimes there's a happy nexus.

I had a Claude Lafond Valen��ay Le Clos du Ch��teau 2006 this week. It was a lemon gold with fresh, clean aroma of white peaches. It was just off dry with a crisp acidity. It had a light spiciness as well as the stone fruit. 13% alcohol matched the medium body well. We had it with Chinese food, which was a perfect match.

A blind guess might have placed this as a New World Viognier, rather than a Loire Sauvignon Blanc-Chardonnay. At ��6-7 a bottle it's a lovely, surprising wine.

Vouvray On Tour

I cycled through Vouvray last summer on my way along the Loire, so I developed an affection for it. I was surprised to find a bottle in an American supermarket for under $10. That's a fiver, and it's travelled thousands of miles. For the money, I didn't expect much, but picked up a bottle of Barton & Guestier Vouvray 2003, with spaghetti and some scallops for a midweek dinner.

It was a yellow-gold colour with strong legs. It smelled slightly honied with a touch of peach blossom. Off dry with just enough acidity to carry the sugar it had subtle flavours of pear and peach. The flavour faded quite quickly and I suspect the 2003 was reaching the end of its useful life.

This wasn't a classic Vouvray, but it was a great value wine with a little character.

Middle of the road

The constant rain of the last few days put me in mind of the Loire, having cycled the Loire this summer in non-stop rain, I now associate rain with Sauvignon Blanc. I had a Duc de Guise Sauvignon Blanc 2005 this week. It’s a pale lemon with reasonable legs. It smells slightly blossomy with some mineral and zippy fruit.
It’s dry with a refreshing acidity. It tastes lightly nettle-like with some subdued fruit and minerality. It has a medium body with a medium level of alcohol at 12.5%.

This is a perfectly good Sauvignon Blanc, less fruity than one from New Zealand, less assertively mineral and austere than a Pouilly Fume or Sancerre, but it doesn’t really carve out anything unique for itself. At under £6, it’s a reasonable midweek wine to have with food, but not one I’d seek out.

Va-Va-Vouvray

Having cycled through Sauvignon Blanc country for days, arriving in Vouvray gave me a chance to switch to Chenin Blanc for a day. It’s not my favourite variety, but change is good.

I had a 2003 Dominique Baud Vouvray this week from Majestic. It was a rich golden yellow with good legs. It smelled of spicy honey, warm and inviting. It’s off dry, although the honey flavour made it taste a little sweeter. There was some over-ripe melon flavours and tinned pears.

It’s 12.5% alcohol and feels quite rich in the mouth and lasts well. It goes well with light dishes and at around £6 it’s good value for midweek drinking.

Sancerre, raw

Last summer I cycled along the Loire and up to Sancerre. It was beautiful, stopping to stand on what passes for soil there and looking at vines as far as the eye could see. I did so in driving rain, up through the hairpins to the town of Sancerre itself. I’m a sucker for the romance of wines, standing in the vineyard, cycling past vines, feeling the sun the grapes feel, soaking up the rain as they do.

So when asked to pick a wine out of a limited selection in someone else’s fridge I immediately chose a Sainsbury’s Taste The Difference Sancerre 2004. This Sainsbury’s range used to be called Sainsbury’s Classic Selection, and they went out of their way to find examples of famous wines which were absolutely typical of the appellation – handy if you want a reasonably priced benchmark.

This Sancerre was pale and bright. It smelled like wet stones, if you’ve ever bothered to stop and smell some! It had some quite zippy fruit, citrus and with just a smidge of gooseberry and herby grassiness. It’s bone dry and crisply acidic. The minerality feels really refreshing in the mouth, with the citrus flavour carrying through.

This is quite a direct wine, it’s not gentle or friendly and welcoming, it’s assertively acidic and mineral, perfect when you’re in a Sancerre frame of mind and don’t want to break the £10 barrier.

The Crab with the Golden Claws

Cheverny is an impressive French Chateau, in the big fancy house sense rather than the wine corporation way. There’s an absurd quantity of Chateau along the Loire as it heads east to west, and cycling through the neighbourhood it’s easy for them to blur together. This one is probably easiest to recognise from its appearance in TinTin books.

I had a bottle of 2005 Cheverny, Le Vieux Clos from Domaine Delaille to remind me. It smells lovely with oodles of gooseberry and some scented tropical fruits. It’s dry with good acidity, but not a rip roaring amount. It tastes fruity, with a strong dash of minerality and some grassy herbiness. What more could a person want.

It’s not a pure sauvignon blanc, it also includes chardonnay which seems to soften off the acidity and add softer tropical fruits to the more traditional zippy Loire flavours, making it a happy compromise between the two rather than a bizarre and ugly love child.

At under £6 a bottle from Majestic it’s a steal, perfect with seafood, even crab, whether you love TinTin or not.

The Empire Strikes Back

JP Chenet is an interesting brand. It’s worked hard to promote French wine outside France, waving goodbye to Piat D’Or in the rearview mirror of their sales figures as it became the world’s best selling French wine brand. Largely they’ve done this by having a slightly silly bottle, varietal labelling, economy pricing and supermarket friendly promotions policies. If you didn't know better you'd think they were a New World producer.

Their ‘Les Terroirs’ range moves them away from this approach very slightly. The bottle is still a little silly – fat with a dimple, and my bottle of 2005 Touraine is clearly labeled Sauvignon Blanc. This is a nice touch, gradually introducing the concept of terroir to wine buyers who know they like the brand, and know they like the grape, are ready to shell out a couple of extra quid, but don’t want to waste it on something they may not like.

It’s not a bad wine. It’s certainly not the best I’ve had from the region, but at around £6 it’s certainly reasonable value. It has the characteristics of the region, it’s refreshingly zingy with a mineral acidity, it has a little elderflower and plenty of citrus.

I’d certainly give another JP Chenet ‘Terroirs’ wine a try.

More Loire
Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Domaine Bourillon-Dorléans Vouvray

Hooray for Vouvray

West of Orleans, east of Tours, north of the Loire is the town of Vouvray. I could see it, across the river from Ville-Aux-Dames, a town a chose to mistranslate as the Village of the Damned as I struggled to find something to eat and to navigate my way through main roads and industrial estates whilst semi-naked on a bike. OK, so I was wearing enough Lycra to cover important body parts, but that doesn’t feel very protective whilst articulated lorries thunder past.
Vouvray looked altogether nicer, and provided nicer products. I picked up a Vouvray 2003, Domaine Bourillon-Dorléans. It’s a Decanter Gold Medal winner so proper wine drinkers like it! It has a handy foil tearer, but a nasty black plastic cork, which urges you to visit their website.

The wine is clear, bright, pale lemon with thick legs. It has a light aroma of peach blossom and a little citrus fruit.

It’s medium, squarely medium, not too sweet, not too dry, but juuuust right. It has a well balanced acidity, with an element of minerality which helps it hang around. The wine feels rich and pleasantly full in the mouth, with the peach flavour turning to fruit rather than blossom. There’s a touch of honey and some spiciness on the length which keeps it interesting. It feels a little stronger than the 12.5% quoted, but is well balanced.

This wine is good value at around £7 from Majestic, another Decanter winner. It will probably keep a couple of years, getting better, but I’m not sure I have the self-discipline to keep it – next time I make seafood risotto, or have a fish pie, I think I’ll drink the second bottle.

Rickety, bonkers, but fun

I spotted a wine in a Spar shop attached to a petrol station, admittedly not normally my first choice wine merchant, but it was Champteloup Rose 2004 from the Loire valley. We’d cycled to Chanteloup, taking a reasonable detour from the river, on the way from Chambord to Tours. It’s a French folly, a Chinese pagoda in what was the grounds of a grand chateau, although the house has long since been demolished. The pagoda itself is held up with hope and would have a risk assessor in tears, but it’s fun.
OK so Champteloup isn’t Chanteloup, but it’s close enough and at £3.99, I suspected it was a reasonable attempt at passing-off.

The bottle is slightly fatter than normal, an aspect which I suspect doesn’t endear it to supermarket shelf planners. It has a screwcap, making it party and picnic friendly.

It’s a cheery pink, like the mouthwash at my dentists. It smells of boiled sweets in ‘red’ flavour – a strawberry, raspberry, chemistry-set mix. It’s off dry with more than enough acidity to neutralise a jellyfish sting. It’s light and lively with a slight prickle on the tongue. At 11% alcohol it’s easy drinking, but wouldn’t hold up well to food.

I enjoyed my Champteloup, it tasted like the cheap and cheerful wine that comes free with the plat du jour all along the Loire. It’s not a great wine, and without the association, it’s not even a good one, but I enjoyed it because wine is so much more than a score.

Tours of Touraine

The objective of my recent cycle trip in France was to get to Tours, specifically the tomb of St Martin. Strange but true. Fortunately mediaeval pilgrimage routes do tend to pass through rather nice wine country.

The whole region around Tours contains plenty of good Sauvignon Blanc, as well as Vouvray, but it’s a big region, and there’s plenty of vineyards in the flat fertile flood plains of the Loire. These regions produce great sweetcorn, peaches and melons but perhaps not the greatest wines.

I picked up a cheap and cheerful Touraine for under £5 this week. It was clear and bright, and very pale. It had a light fruity aroma with hints of asparagus and some fruit. It was dry and crisply acidic, with a fairly light body. The fruit was a little more gooseberry-like on the palate, but nothing special. It finished quickly.

I drank a few glasses of very similar wine in the region – it came free with lunch, which was nice, rather like a chocolate mint or an interesting amuse bouche. I suspect the Premiere Sauvignon de Touraine from Sainsbury’s comes from easy cycling areas, free from steep climbs and protected from the strength of the sun. There’s better Sauvignon Blanc around at this price, I’d opt for something from Chile if I was confined by budget, but for a couple of quid extra New Zealand and Pouilly offers a lot more for your Sauvignon Blanc pound.

Kiwi Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc
Vina Maipo Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Sainsbury's Premiere Sauvignon de Touraine
Concha y Toro Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc Montana Sauvignon Blanc 2005

Pouilly-sur-Loire

Pouilly-Fume was the first wine that got me interested in where wines came from. I knew I liked Sauvignon Blanc, but this was weird and wonderful, and I was told it was because of the soil it grew in. That first bottle has a lot to answer for.

So now I’ve seen the soil, felt the stones and climbed the hills. I’ve even seen the iconic Chateau of the region, one that Joan of Arc stayed in, and no doubt had a glass of wine at.

I have a Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés" 2005, Marcel Sautejeau. It’s a bright pale lemon and crystal clear. It has a full aroma with gooseberries and blossom, and something just a little greengage like.

It’s bone dry and crisply acidic, feeling really refreshing in the mouth. The minerality of the acidity makes it wonderfully drinkable, with the gooseberry fruit and slightly under-ripe apple flavours making it more-ish.

This is well made wine from a good year, and I’d expect to pay a lot more than the £6 that Majestic are currently selling it for, so I’ll buy a few more, but I suspect it won’t last til Christmas so I’ll have to keep drinking.

It comes in at 12.5% alcohol and is perfect pre-dinner or with shellfish. I had some Pouilly Fume in Pouilly with Crotins de Chavignol, the local goat cheese, and felt actual angels dancing on my tastebuds. I had been cycling in the sun for a while though.


Kiwi Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc
Vina Maipo Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Sainsbury's Premiere Sauvignon de Touraine
Concha y Toro Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc
Montana Sauvignon Blanc 2005

Reuilly Good

Just to the west of the Loire is Reuilly and whilst we didn’t make the detour, and kept pedalling towards Nevers, we did enjoy a glass or two of Sauvignon Blanc from the region on the way.

I had a Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" 2005, Gérard Bigonneau this weekend which put me back in the Loire mood. Annoyingly it has one of those foam filled phony corks which has none of the charm of a natural cork and none of the functionality of a screwtop. Oh, and they get stuck on the corkscrew too.

It’s a pale bright lemon colour and a clean fresh aroma. It’s fruity with stacks of grapefruit. It’s dry with a minerally acidity which is really moreish, although it’s surprisingly full. At around £8 it’s not the cheapest Sauvignon Blanc on the shelf but it compares well with others from the Loire region that come in at around £20.

It went really well with grilled shrimp, and would be fine on its own. At 12.5% alcohol it’s a wine you can comfortably have a second glass of without falling over (depending of course on the size of your glasses).

Kiwi Cuvee Sauvignon Blanc
Vina Maipo Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Sainsbury's Premiere Sauvignon de Touraine
Concha y Toro Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc
Montana Sauvignon Blanc 2005

Sancerre

The town of Sancerre is perched high above the Loire, a fact you get to fully understand when you've cycled up the hairpin bends to it in the driving rain.

My beer-drinking cycling buddy found it a little odd that I felt the need to stop and take pictures of the vines, soils and fruit, but I'm sure you'll appreciate them.

I did find it amusing that Sancerre is twinned with Eccleshall in Staffordshire. An unlikely choice, and unfortunately I don't have any pictures of Eccleshall, but if you know why the two towns are twinned, do let me know.

Vin Valley

I'm back from a two week stint cycling along the Loire. We started out at St Etienne with some Cotes du Rhone, working our way through some run of the mill local wines before reaching the fairy tale castle of Pouilly-sur-Loire, and Pouilly Fume, and cycling upwards into Sancerre. Never let anyone tell you that the path along the Loire is flat.

We carried on through Coteaux du Giennois country through Briare and Gien in the driving rain. Orleans followed, before the fabulous Chateau at Chambord and the Cheverny to go with it. Into Touraine, through Montlouis and Vouvray before visiting St Martin of Tours and enjoying a spot of Chinon.

There'll certainly be no lack of rain in this vintage, it was relentless, something you tend to notice on a bike.

We stuck to buying wines en pichet (or carafe) from the neighbourhood we were in, after all I can buy good bottles here at home, but can't experience the feeling. Sancerre was probably the best wine we tried, and at E12 for 50cl, by far the most expensive, but it was in a fancy, touristy, restaurant. The Chinon was a delightful surprise, and Vouvray the best deal by quite a margin - fabulous stuff at E7. The VDQS from Orleans was perhaps the worst glass I encountered, but as it came free with my meal I could hardly complain.

Unfortunately the panniers on my bike weren't up to bringing much home, but I have a stock of Loire valley wines I'll no doubt be working my way through much more enthusiastically now that I can visualise the terroir, and of course the terror of cyclists bum rash.

The Aging French

The Bellini’s were so good last night I’ve opted for another sparkler for Portugal vs France. I’m rooting for France, but only just, so I haven’t gone mad with tonight’s wine. I have no idea what it will be like - a Blanc Foussy which I won on the bottle stall at the church garden fete! It’s non-vintage and there’s every chance that this wasn’t its first role as a prize. There’s a range of bottles that I’ve donated over the years that make periodic re-appearances.

The wine opened with a reassuring pop-sigh, and it’s a pale straw colour, bright and attractive. There’s plenty of fine bubbles, which do resemble Champagne. It smells fresh with some biscuity yeast and just the tiniest hint of feet.

It’s dry, but with less acidity than I’d expected. It’s medium bodied with some fruit, but lots more bakery taste, more bagel than brioche. The mouth feel of the bubbles is pleasant but not enough to drown out the foot flavour which is really coming through. I plan to cycle the Loire this summer and I suspect my shoes will remind me of this tasting experience.

It’s 12%, as it stands, but I can’t actually drink it as it is. I do have some Cassis though, which at 15% will push it up just a smidge. OK, more than a smidge, it needs quite a bit.

Interestingly Blanc Foussy’s own website contains a ‘recipes’ section. Their primary recommendation is orange juice, but there’s options for gin, blue Bols, Kirsch, Rum, banana liquer and all manner of fruit juices. I suspect it’s not a beverage designed to be drunk without masking.

Maybe I’ll have a Port instead.

French pretensions

So France are through, unfortunately not with a performance befitting Champagne, or even Sauternes, so here goes with Kiwi Cuvee, yes Kiwi. It’s a French Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire but they’d really rather you thought it was from New Zealand. The wine maker is.

It’s a pale greenish lemon, and has good fresh fruit on the nose, lemon, a hint of gooseberry and some blossom, which betrays it’s non-NZ roots.

It’s dry and crisply acidic with a light body. There’s a good hit of fruit, with the gooseberry coming through and a touch of grassiness, although it feels a bit two dimensional. At 12% it is easy drinking wine.

I found Kiwi Cuvee a bit disappointing. It lacked the zinginess of Touraine, and the fruitiness of a NZ Sauvignon. It’s reasonable value at £4-5 a bottle, but go mad and spend the extra couple of quid to get a real Kiwi Sauvignon.

Vina Maipo Reserve Sauvignon Blanc
Reuilly "Les Bouchauds" Sauvignon Blanc
Pouilly-Fumé "Les Ferrés"
Sainsbury's Premiere Sauvignon de Touraine
Concha y Toro Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc
Montana Sauvignon Blanc 2005