France, Part III - Loire Valley and a bit more
The Loire River is one of the longest navigable waterways in all of Europe, and, in many ways, cuts right through the heart of the country. Extending from Lyon upwards past Orleans and finally out to Nantes, it drains a good deal of the nation, and retains many of its most interesting episodes. That part which is commonly referred to as “The Loire Valley,” however, begins only at the cities of Pouilly-sur-Loire and Sancerre. From there to the sea, with many curves, stretches the land of royalty and their chateaux.
Before quite entering the aforementioned wonderland we stayed at Sancerre and Nadia was not sure that she would ever be able to drag Matt out. Matt doubted the same of Nadia. Nice small town, excellent wine, a bakery on the corner of the main square that still stands out as one of the best we’ve uncovered. We had a number of winery visits, but the standouts were Domaine Vacheron (2004 Les Romains, best we had), Alphonse Mellot (2004 Generacion XIX), and Joseph Mellot (2005 Les Vignes du Rocher). Eventually we had to leave though-Nadia says it is for the best; there are many more things we would have never experienced should we have stayed. Still, sometimes Matt wonders if they are all that important.
As a rule on this trip, the only stock product in our four-wheeled home is wine. Briefly, it changed as we were driving from Sancerre to Pouilly and then on to Bourges. There are cheese farms specializing in the local delight: goat cheeses. Crotin de Chavignol, to be exact, and a whole range of other chevres without such pedigree. Before crossing the Loire into Pouilly, we stopped at a goat farm, where we were escorted to the tiny sales room by a rather self-possessed Boston terrier, a worldly dog who, it seemed, had seen it all, and just wanted to be let in for a nap, curse his lack of opposable thumbs. The room had a window onto the living quarters of the horned beasts, and Nadia and a goat got to check each other out when one of them (goat, not Nadia) bounded onto the sill. We left with three cheeses and drove on. We were heading to Pouilly to try the wine.
Pouilly sur Loire is a town of excellent wine with a characteristic minerality that makes them smell dusty, thus garnering the name Pouilly FumÈ. The part of the river this settlement rests on is a protected nature habitat. We enjoyed our short stroll there. But, it’s a working town: no cool churches, no grand views, no ancient ruins. Just really good wine, and a lot of producers open for walk-in visits. We had a good number of these, enough to need that walk afterwards, and picked up a couple of bottles. Nothing outstanding, like our Sancerre producers, but excellent picnic wines.
Our road next lay past the actual town of Chavignol, the local mecca of goat cheese lovers. We left there with six more crotins. These were one of the best goat cheeses we have ever had and, further, none of the nine we had in stock went bad before being eaten. That is all.
From Chavignol we took the high road, almost a straight line, to Bourges, a sizeable town that, at least upon entering, looked like an old-world New Jersey suburb. Eventually, though, we wound our way into the small old city, parked, and headed out. Bourges is a lived-in place; there is an historical center that is welcoming to tourists, but the rings of sprawl surrounding it are decidedly for the locals. The best way to see these is from the top of the bell tower of the St. Etienne Cathedral. The tower is reached by a never-ending (or so it seemed on the way up) spiral staircase replete with tiny gargoyle heads in every corner and a whole lot of graffiti carved into the soft limestone. Most of these inscriptions were from more recent hooligans, but a few were clocking in at a good 200 years old. We must say, there has been a decided decline in the quality of handwriting (or, hand-carving) since 1807, most disconcerting.
In other news on the passage of time, the cathedral sports an amazing astrological clock from the 15th century that tells the lunar cycle, the zodiac, the position of the sun at any given time, and, more mundane, the hour and minute. All on different dials, lavishly decorated and inlaid with whatever was on hand at the time.
In addition, we had the pleasure of a rather swift and uninformative tour of the so-called crypt. It is not a crypt at all, but a part of the Roman ruins that the cathedral has been built on. The ground there not being level, the anonymous architect compensated for the dip by constructing a set of vaults that rest beneath the apex, allowing for an enormous row of windows for illumination. It was used during the construction as a workroom, and there are still sketches on the floor, such as of the rose window, from that time. Also on display are sculptures that once adorned the faÁade, damaged during the Revolution. The sculpture that delighted Matt the most was that of the pot of hell with all of the sinners cooking for their misdeeds. It reminded him of the old days in the kitchen. Being a crypt, there are skeletons down there too, with the tomb of Jean de Berry taking center stage.
Back in the 14th century, when Jean was still living, he had in his employment a certain goldsmith by the name of Jacques Coeur. Smart and capable, he built himself up into the role of Finance Minister to Charles VII, leveraging himself on trade with the Near East. His position was cemented by building a fleet of cargo vessels for the king, allowing them to circumvent their dependence on the Italians. At the peak of his career, alas, he decided to build a grand palace for himself in Bourges using allegedly embezzled funds. The king, upon hearing of this, ordered his arrest. It was carried out on the night of a grand ball Jacques was throwing for his son. He would surely have been executed were it not for the interference of his good friend, Pope Nicholas V, who also gave him refuge in Rome. Jacques had time for another last sea voyage as a commander on a crusade against the Turks under the order of Pope Calixtus III. But there he died of an illness and that was that. The palace in Bourges remained in royal possession. Confiscated during the Revolution it made its way to a museum in modern day, a stunning example of the Flamboyant Gothic style, with every nook and cranny occupied by the most delightful carved figures. Our guide, who arrived a good bit late and seemed to have one heck of a hangover, was able to elucidate some of the finer points. He was also given to some rather romantic notions, and gave a recitation of poetry mid-way through. It was all in French and we did not catch much of it, save that the poetry was written by the original owner of the palace and was of a philosophical nature. That is where we ended with our tour to the city and moved to a more rural kind of sightseeing.
The memory of the first chateau we visited will forever be linked in our minds with fairy-tales as this is what each of us thought upon seeing it first. If ever there was a place in the world that can convey with architecture the spirit of noble deeds, courtly love , tournaments, if ever there were a castle where the Sleeping Beauty could have really lived in or Cinderella attended her ball, it is surely Chambord. There is a lot to say about Chambord, but it is best that you go and see for yourself. The castle was built as a hunting lodge, in place of the one that was there already, by the last true knight king of France, Francois I. It’s staircase, in the shape of a double-helix, is likely, it is said, to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The roof is a platform on which a city of towers has been erected. From afar it makes the massive main body look like a cloud on which a small kingdom rests. From up close it nurtures your inner child, making you want to settle there with all of your friends and family and all you love and hold dear in your heart and make your life there, which surely should be as wonderful as the place itself. At night, a light show that paints the walls of the chateau with shadowy visions reminiscent of the tapestries hung inside, all set to a haunting melody, is a spectacle one should not miss if it can be helped. There are other chateaux, but none so dear as Chambord.
There is Cheverny, the perfect model of 17th century refinement; balanced and symmetrical. This is where the architect Boyer of Blois is said to have invented The French Style between 1630 and 1640. Still “in the family,” the chateau offers both the carefully preserved original decorations and a look at the taste of the successive generations of its owners. Here queen Marie de Medici first noticed Jean Monier, the decorator she later employed for her own Chateau of Blois and at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The most striking of his creations are the Don Quixote oil paintings in the dining room and the hallway leading up to it. The romantic spirit of the chateau and the gardens is enchanting.
Chenonceau has a magic of it’s own not entirely dissimilar to the one of Chambord, the fault of some very whimsical architecture. The chateau was given to Diana of Poitiers, the favorite of Henri II, officially, in recognition of the “great and commendable services” rendered by her husband to the Crown (which must have been in looking the other way when necessary). The enterprising woman carried out much of the architectural work in the chateau and laid out a garden that was famous in its day for innovation and elegance. Henri’s wife, Catherine de Medici, ordered her out once he was dead, killed in a tournament (isn’t it funny to think that these things really happened once upon a time?), and settled in the chateau herself. She, too, conducted much work at Chenonceau. In fact, it was Catherine who added the two stories to the bridge that stretches from the chateau across the river, an element that gives much of the fairy-tale air to the architecture. The interior decorations include lavish tapestries, fine furniture, many paintings by the masters of the Renaissance and beyond. The place is overrun by tourists, of course, and, not being on the grand scale of Chambord, feels rather stuffy. Still, it is clearly a site one should not miss.
The Loire Valley, in spite of what innumerable postcards might display otherwise, is not just a land of big limestone houses. The region is thick with adorable little villages that have overgrown themselves, as is the case with Amboise. It possesses that singular charm of the genuinely old town, the sort that is easy with its glory for having held it for so long, the sort that works wonders to pry open the wallets of visitors. Our stay was confined to the wonderful Sunday market and a spread-out and scattered campsite. It wasn’t just that the showers were on one side of the enormous grounds, and the toilets on the other, or that both were closed much of the day and night. To compliment these conveniences they had free laundry service, consisting of one machine.
There is not much that arouses pangs of patriotism in Matt, but European washing machines fit the bill. How on earth so supposedly advanced a group as the French can possibly consider themselves full-fledged members of the First World with their laundry in such a state he cannot say. Loaded from the front, these machines have miniscule capacity and they do not seem to be entirely sure about that which actually washes the laundry - spinning. Yes, they do spin a bit, very slowly, for a few minutes at a stretch. They start gathering expected momentum only to slow down and stop entirely after a few brief seconds of what one would consider a desired speed of rotation, then sit there unmoving with the laundry soaking back all of the dirty water. That goes on for a while. We had our one load of laundry take close to three hours to finish. When we took it out, it was sopping wet. We put it back for a special cycle designed to wring it out only, we thought. The machine promptly filled itself with water and resumed the slow rotation. In the end, after another hour and a half, it finished. At that point we did not care one way or another and took the laundry out as it was. The washing machine that held us hostage for several hours rattled our nerves so much that we decided to just move on elsewhere the following morning though we did not rightly see much of Amboise itself.
Vouvray appeared before us as a grey town surrounded by cold, wet hills. Most of these hills seem to produce chenin blanc, the local white grape, but to varying degrees of quality. There are some, like the producers we passed on the highway, that make a pleasant, off-dry wine that is nice when drunk very cold. And then there are those that are simply transcendent. Into this latter category falls our only appointment there, at Domaine Huet.
Let us break the flow of this story for a minute to report on how Matt came to terms with Leonardo da Vinci. His mistrust of the great master’s celebrated skill as a painter started with seeing the “Lady with an Ermine” in Houston at a traveling exhibit. He did not believe the proportions of her hands were life-like enough. His misgivings grew further when he visited the Hermitage on our first trip to St. Petersburg two years ago. While Nadia stood transfixed before one of the two “Madonna and Child” paintings (the earlier one) the worm of doubt ate at Matt’s heart. The baby that young girl was holding so tenderly on her lap was far too large to be realistic. Nadia’s reassurances that divine miracles may account for the phenomena of baby’s size did not seem to work. Our recent visit to the Hermitage renewed the debate. Alas, a real life experience came at last to assuage Matt’s soar heart. This has occurred while we were tasting at Huet. A large group of Brits came in counting among its number a slender young mother with the biggest freaking baby you would ever have seen. Nadia played with this toddler and tried to carry it around. She recons it must have weighed sixty pounds at least. How the woman of such delicate structure could have produced the little pantagruel is unknown, but there it was, and Leonardo was redeemed.
Now, transcendental occurrences. Domaine Huet is one of Matt’s favorite producers, has been for a while. Their wines consistently have an incredibly complex nose, backed up by solid structure and acidity that still leaves room for finesse and subtlety of flavor. And that’s exactly what we got in the tasting room, and then some. At most wineries visited thus far, what is available for sale, let alone for tasting, is a limited selection of very recent vintages. At Huet this is different. You can taste something like 20 different wines, from the house sparkling (worth a taste, rather pleasant) to dessert wines from the early ’80’s. The winery is completely biodynamic, and owns four different plots in the area, the most famous of which is the Clos du Bourg. In the tasting room, they’ve set up four different core samples of these vineyards behind glass, showing what the soil looks like a few feet down. Seeing the different mixtures of clay and limestone does help in identifying the differences between the plots. We tasted a huge number, spat reluctantly, and bought five bottles. Really, really good stuff.
After that we went to Tours, where we saw the old town and visited the Cathedral of St. Gatien. It was started in 1235 and took 250 years to complete, so that, besides the at this point rather familiar Flamboyant Gothic, some early Renaissance elements are evident as well. Tours is a very nice city and we both agreed that we could live in it for a short period of time. That, of course, is what we said about many towns in the Loire Valley. It seems a very livable place, all in all.
Chinon is an excellent little town as well. We thought we could live in it for a short bit too. It helped that we had a great wine at Couly Dutheil and a tour of the winery conducted by a fun guide. The wines and the region are more complex than Matt had expected, and it was a real treat to see the variations and then taste them. Despite some inane and disparaging comments made about this area in some wine guides, the good producers here have all of the quality of good Burgundy at a tiny fraction of the cost.
For our next destination, Varrains, we had trouble getting there. Generally we make our way easily relying on Matt’s map-reading skills and on the signs. Both failed us and we were terribly lost. We were headed to this village to visit Domaine de Roches Neuves, a very good biodynamic producer. When we finally arrived, a little bedraggled, we had one of those rare, wonderful visits in which the winemaker himself led us down to his cellar, popped open a cask, and served us right out of the barrel. Actually, several barrels, as he decided to craft a house blend right there in the glass. We also got to marvel over his own little concoction, a single barrel in which he had created a solera of white wines from 1992 to 1997. The smell and taste were unlike anything we’ve ever experienced; waves of butter, mushrooms, apples, quince, all manner of flavors slipping in and out. His wines are available in the U.S., but, alas, not the solera.
All mists, green meadows, forests, and vineyards, that was Savennieres when we came upon it. A sense of otherworldliness pervades the town. There are strange turns and twists; a trail by the rail track that connects two parts of town that otherwise seem to have no other joining. The winemakers still occupy their chateaux, not to be seen, but to be lived in. We had several wines and all were excellent and refined. Like Vouvray, these are white wines made from the chenin blanc grape, but their character is different. This has partly to do with the soil, a weathered schist rather than clay and limestone, and the weather, which is a little colder and damper. The wines themselves range from off-dry to sweet, all with very good acidity. Typically, they have a nose of honey, lemon peel, and flowers, and a tinge of burnt toast that might be mistaken for oxidation, and are so different from any other wine that they managed to contribute to the surreal atmosphere. The best producer by far was Nicholas Joly, a controversial figure who has been a world leader in the biodynamic movement, but his neighbors craft exceptional examples of their own (and sell great bottles from the early ’90’s for a song).
From then we moved further west toward the coast, first to Angers, in which we saw the most impressive castle-chateau and the Apocalypse tapestries housed within. These were created on the order of the Duke of Anjou Louis I, between 1375 and 1380. Their sheer size is astonishing, originally 168m long and 5m high. There are 72 (out of 76, four being lost) scenes closely based on the Apocalypse of St. John. It takes a long while to make your way through the display room. Incredibly well preserved, with vivid color, complex composition, fantastical character of the subject and style to match it, the tapestries are unarguably “one of the greatest works of Western art”, quoting Jean Lurcat who discovered them in 1938.
The next city was Nantes. We had one of the best meals on our trip there. There, too, to our delight we stumbled onto an organ concert in the Cathedral of St. Pierre and St. Paul, incidentally a site where Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes in 1598 trying to establish a sort of equality between the Protestants and the Catholics. It came after much bloodshed, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which cost twenty thousand Huguenots their lives. Henry IV, of Navarre, a Huguenot himself before he converted to Catholicism in order to obtain the French crown (“Paris is worth a Mass,”), was largely criticized form both sides for this move. And though it ended the Wars of Religion when it was signed, it did not ultimately work. Not a hundred years later Louis XIV, revoked the Edict and caused large migrations of Protestants from France to England, Holland, and Germany.
We had an opportunity to reconnect with this piece of history the next day when we went to the Chateau of the Dukes of Brittany. It is the place responsible for our favorite quote of the trip, an exclamation by the afore-mentioned Henry IV: ”God’s teeth! No small beer, these dukes of Brittany!”, which he uttered on first encounter. The castle was much modified. So much so that, we think, the castle in Angers gives a better impression of what Henry IV must have seen. It is very interesting regardless and houses an informative museum, which at times seems never-ending. We will skip stories about Anne de Bretagne though, married to two kings, or about the role of Nantes as a premier port and its dark history as a major hub in slave trade. All of these and more were carefully detailed and illustrated in the museum.
We will move to simpler subjects instead to round up this update. La Baule is a beach town given three stars in our Michelin guide. Since in Oostende, Belgium, where weather did not cooperate, both of us had a craving for ocean swimming. We got that out of the way in La Baule. In general, however, the town is (borrowing from Three Men in a Boat Nadia was reading at the time of our visit) “much too manicured to be pleasant”. The beaches are carefully marked with prohibitive signs concerning picnicking, dog walking, and other activities deemed offensive by the mysterious beach administration in control of these matters. Still, the fine sand beach and the ocean made up for it. We spend the entire afternoon there. In the morning seagulls, a host of locals, and Matt were out gathering clams in the receded tide. We had those steamed in white wine for dinner along with ratatouille and the rougettes purchased at a local market. It was a separate adventure to get the water for cooking the clams, may be better to recount it in person. Late the next morning after another visit to the market we left for La Rochelle.
You probably noticed that we have long moved on from the Loire Valley so La Baule is where we will stop. (Don’t thank us!) The stories from Bordeaux will come next. We hope everyone is well. Please stay in touch. Cheers, Matt and Nadia
Before quite entering the aforementioned wonderland we stayed at Sancerre and Nadia was not sure that she would ever be able to drag Matt out. Matt doubted the same of Nadia. Nice small town, excellent wine, a bakery on the corner of the main square that still stands out as one of the best we’ve uncovered. We had a number of winery visits, but the standouts were Domaine Vacheron (2004 Les Romains, best we had), Alphonse Mellot (2004 Generacion XIX), and Joseph Mellot (2005 Les Vignes du Rocher). Eventually we had to leave though-Nadia says it is for the best; there are many more things we would have never experienced should we have stayed. Still, sometimes Matt wonders if they are all that important.
As a rule on this trip, the only stock product in our four-wheeled home is wine. Briefly, it changed as we were driving from Sancerre to Pouilly and then on to Bourges. There are cheese farms specializing in the local delight: goat cheeses. Crotin de Chavignol, to be exact, and a whole range of other chevres without such pedigree. Before crossing the Loire into Pouilly, we stopped at a goat farm, where we were escorted to the tiny sales room by a rather self-possessed Boston terrier, a worldly dog who, it seemed, had seen it all, and just wanted to be let in for a nap, curse his lack of opposable thumbs. The room had a window onto the living quarters of the horned beasts, and Nadia and a goat got to check each other out when one of them (goat, not Nadia) bounded onto the sill. We left with three cheeses and drove on. We were heading to Pouilly to try the wine.
Pouilly sur Loire is a town of excellent wine with a characteristic minerality that makes them smell dusty, thus garnering the name Pouilly FumÈ. The part of the river this settlement rests on is a protected nature habitat. We enjoyed our short stroll there. But, it’s a working town: no cool churches, no grand views, no ancient ruins. Just really good wine, and a lot of producers open for walk-in visits. We had a good number of these, enough to need that walk afterwards, and picked up a couple of bottles. Nothing outstanding, like our Sancerre producers, but excellent picnic wines.
Our road next lay past the actual town of Chavignol, the local mecca of goat cheese lovers. We left there with six more crotins. These were one of the best goat cheeses we have ever had and, further, none of the nine we had in stock went bad before being eaten. That is all.
From Chavignol we took the high road, almost a straight line, to Bourges, a sizeable town that, at least upon entering, looked like an old-world New Jersey suburb. Eventually, though, we wound our way into the small old city, parked, and headed out. Bourges is a lived-in place; there is an historical center that is welcoming to tourists, but the rings of sprawl surrounding it are decidedly for the locals. The best way to see these is from the top of the bell tower of the St. Etienne Cathedral. The tower is reached by a never-ending (or so it seemed on the way up) spiral staircase replete with tiny gargoyle heads in every corner and a whole lot of graffiti carved into the soft limestone. Most of these inscriptions were from more recent hooligans, but a few were clocking in at a good 200 years old. We must say, there has been a decided decline in the quality of handwriting (or, hand-carving) since 1807, most disconcerting.
In other news on the passage of time, the cathedral sports an amazing astrological clock from the 15th century that tells the lunar cycle, the zodiac, the position of the sun at any given time, and, more mundane, the hour and minute. All on different dials, lavishly decorated and inlaid with whatever was on hand at the time.
In addition, we had the pleasure of a rather swift and uninformative tour of the so-called crypt. It is not a crypt at all, but a part of the Roman ruins that the cathedral has been built on. The ground there not being level, the anonymous architect compensated for the dip by constructing a set of vaults that rest beneath the apex, allowing for an enormous row of windows for illumination. It was used during the construction as a workroom, and there are still sketches on the floor, such as of the rose window, from that time. Also on display are sculptures that once adorned the faÁade, damaged during the Revolution. The sculpture that delighted Matt the most was that of the pot of hell with all of the sinners cooking for their misdeeds. It reminded him of the old days in the kitchen. Being a crypt, there are skeletons down there too, with the tomb of Jean de Berry taking center stage.
Back in the 14th century, when Jean was still living, he had in his employment a certain goldsmith by the name of Jacques Coeur. Smart and capable, he built himself up into the role of Finance Minister to Charles VII, leveraging himself on trade with the Near East. His position was cemented by building a fleet of cargo vessels for the king, allowing them to circumvent their dependence on the Italians. At the peak of his career, alas, he decided to build a grand palace for himself in Bourges using allegedly embezzled funds. The king, upon hearing of this, ordered his arrest. It was carried out on the night of a grand ball Jacques was throwing for his son. He would surely have been executed were it not for the interference of his good friend, Pope Nicholas V, who also gave him refuge in Rome. Jacques had time for another last sea voyage as a commander on a crusade against the Turks under the order of Pope Calixtus III. But there he died of an illness and that was that. The palace in Bourges remained in royal possession. Confiscated during the Revolution it made its way to a museum in modern day, a stunning example of the Flamboyant Gothic style, with every nook and cranny occupied by the most delightful carved figures. Our guide, who arrived a good bit late and seemed to have one heck of a hangover, was able to elucidate some of the finer points. He was also given to some rather romantic notions, and gave a recitation of poetry mid-way through. It was all in French and we did not catch much of it, save that the poetry was written by the original owner of the palace and was of a philosophical nature. That is where we ended with our tour to the city and moved to a more rural kind of sightseeing.
The memory of the first chateau we visited will forever be linked in our minds with fairy-tales as this is what each of us thought upon seeing it first. If ever there was a place in the world that can convey with architecture the spirit of noble deeds, courtly love , tournaments, if ever there were a castle where the Sleeping Beauty could have really lived in or Cinderella attended her ball, it is surely Chambord. There is a lot to say about Chambord, but it is best that you go and see for yourself. The castle was built as a hunting lodge, in place of the one that was there already, by the last true knight king of France, Francois I. It’s staircase, in the shape of a double-helix, is likely, it is said, to have been designed by Leonardo da Vinci. The roof is a platform on which a city of towers has been erected. From afar it makes the massive main body look like a cloud on which a small kingdom rests. From up close it nurtures your inner child, making you want to settle there with all of your friends and family and all you love and hold dear in your heart and make your life there, which surely should be as wonderful as the place itself. At night, a light show that paints the walls of the chateau with shadowy visions reminiscent of the tapestries hung inside, all set to a haunting melody, is a spectacle one should not miss if it can be helped. There are other chateaux, but none so dear as Chambord.
There is Cheverny, the perfect model of 17th century refinement; balanced and symmetrical. This is where the architect Boyer of Blois is said to have invented The French Style between 1630 and 1640. Still “in the family,” the chateau offers both the carefully preserved original decorations and a look at the taste of the successive generations of its owners. Here queen Marie de Medici first noticed Jean Monier, the decorator she later employed for her own Chateau of Blois and at the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. The most striking of his creations are the Don Quixote oil paintings in the dining room and the hallway leading up to it. The romantic spirit of the chateau and the gardens is enchanting.
Chenonceau has a magic of it’s own not entirely dissimilar to the one of Chambord, the fault of some very whimsical architecture. The chateau was given to Diana of Poitiers, the favorite of Henri II, officially, in recognition of the “great and commendable services” rendered by her husband to the Crown (which must have been in looking the other way when necessary). The enterprising woman carried out much of the architectural work in the chateau and laid out a garden that was famous in its day for innovation and elegance. Henri’s wife, Catherine de Medici, ordered her out once he was dead, killed in a tournament (isn’t it funny to think that these things really happened once upon a time?), and settled in the chateau herself. She, too, conducted much work at Chenonceau. In fact, it was Catherine who added the two stories to the bridge that stretches from the chateau across the river, an element that gives much of the fairy-tale air to the architecture. The interior decorations include lavish tapestries, fine furniture, many paintings by the masters of the Renaissance and beyond. The place is overrun by tourists, of course, and, not being on the grand scale of Chambord, feels rather stuffy. Still, it is clearly a site one should not miss.
The Loire Valley, in spite of what innumerable postcards might display otherwise, is not just a land of big limestone houses. The region is thick with adorable little villages that have overgrown themselves, as is the case with Amboise. It possesses that singular charm of the genuinely old town, the sort that is easy with its glory for having held it for so long, the sort that works wonders to pry open the wallets of visitors. Our stay was confined to the wonderful Sunday market and a spread-out and scattered campsite. It wasn’t just that the showers were on one side of the enormous grounds, and the toilets on the other, or that both were closed much of the day and night. To compliment these conveniences they had free laundry service, consisting of one machine.
There is not much that arouses pangs of patriotism in Matt, but European washing machines fit the bill. How on earth so supposedly advanced a group as the French can possibly consider themselves full-fledged members of the First World with their laundry in such a state he cannot say. Loaded from the front, these machines have miniscule capacity and they do not seem to be entirely sure about that which actually washes the laundry - spinning. Yes, they do spin a bit, very slowly, for a few minutes at a stretch. They start gathering expected momentum only to slow down and stop entirely after a few brief seconds of what one would consider a desired speed of rotation, then sit there unmoving with the laundry soaking back all of the dirty water. That goes on for a while. We had our one load of laundry take close to three hours to finish. When we took it out, it was sopping wet. We put it back for a special cycle designed to wring it out only, we thought. The machine promptly filled itself with water and resumed the slow rotation. In the end, after another hour and a half, it finished. At that point we did not care one way or another and took the laundry out as it was. The washing machine that held us hostage for several hours rattled our nerves so much that we decided to just move on elsewhere the following morning though we did not rightly see much of Amboise itself.
Vouvray appeared before us as a grey town surrounded by cold, wet hills. Most of these hills seem to produce chenin blanc, the local white grape, but to varying degrees of quality. There are some, like the producers we passed on the highway, that make a pleasant, off-dry wine that is nice when drunk very cold. And then there are those that are simply transcendent. Into this latter category falls our only appointment there, at Domaine Huet.
Let us break the flow of this story for a minute to report on how Matt came to terms with Leonardo da Vinci. His mistrust of the great master’s celebrated skill as a painter started with seeing the “Lady with an Ermine” in Houston at a traveling exhibit. He did not believe the proportions of her hands were life-like enough. His misgivings grew further when he visited the Hermitage on our first trip to St. Petersburg two years ago. While Nadia stood transfixed before one of the two “Madonna and Child” paintings (the earlier one) the worm of doubt ate at Matt’s heart. The baby that young girl was holding so tenderly on her lap was far too large to be realistic. Nadia’s reassurances that divine miracles may account for the phenomena of baby’s size did not seem to work. Our recent visit to the Hermitage renewed the debate. Alas, a real life experience came at last to assuage Matt’s soar heart. This has occurred while we were tasting at Huet. A large group of Brits came in counting among its number a slender young mother with the biggest freaking baby you would ever have seen. Nadia played with this toddler and tried to carry it around. She recons it must have weighed sixty pounds at least. How the woman of such delicate structure could have produced the little pantagruel is unknown, but there it was, and Leonardo was redeemed.
Now, transcendental occurrences. Domaine Huet is one of Matt’s favorite producers, has been for a while. Their wines consistently have an incredibly complex nose, backed up by solid structure and acidity that still leaves room for finesse and subtlety of flavor. And that’s exactly what we got in the tasting room, and then some. At most wineries visited thus far, what is available for sale, let alone for tasting, is a limited selection of very recent vintages. At Huet this is different. You can taste something like 20 different wines, from the house sparkling (worth a taste, rather pleasant) to dessert wines from the early ’80’s. The winery is completely biodynamic, and owns four different plots in the area, the most famous of which is the Clos du Bourg. In the tasting room, they’ve set up four different core samples of these vineyards behind glass, showing what the soil looks like a few feet down. Seeing the different mixtures of clay and limestone does help in identifying the differences between the plots. We tasted a huge number, spat reluctantly, and bought five bottles. Really, really good stuff.
After that we went to Tours, where we saw the old town and visited the Cathedral of St. Gatien. It was started in 1235 and took 250 years to complete, so that, besides the at this point rather familiar Flamboyant Gothic, some early Renaissance elements are evident as well. Tours is a very nice city and we both agreed that we could live in it for a short period of time. That, of course, is what we said about many towns in the Loire Valley. It seems a very livable place, all in all.
Chinon is an excellent little town as well. We thought we could live in it for a short bit too. It helped that we had a great wine at Couly Dutheil and a tour of the winery conducted by a fun guide. The wines and the region are more complex than Matt had expected, and it was a real treat to see the variations and then taste them. Despite some inane and disparaging comments made about this area in some wine guides, the good producers here have all of the quality of good Burgundy at a tiny fraction of the cost.
For our next destination, Varrains, we had trouble getting there. Generally we make our way easily relying on Matt’s map-reading skills and on the signs. Both failed us and we were terribly lost. We were headed to this village to visit Domaine de Roches Neuves, a very good biodynamic producer. When we finally arrived, a little bedraggled, we had one of those rare, wonderful visits in which the winemaker himself led us down to his cellar, popped open a cask, and served us right out of the barrel. Actually, several barrels, as he decided to craft a house blend right there in the glass. We also got to marvel over his own little concoction, a single barrel in which he had created a solera of white wines from 1992 to 1997. The smell and taste were unlike anything we’ve ever experienced; waves of butter, mushrooms, apples, quince, all manner of flavors slipping in and out. His wines are available in the U.S., but, alas, not the solera.
All mists, green meadows, forests, and vineyards, that was Savennieres when we came upon it. A sense of otherworldliness pervades the town. There are strange turns and twists; a trail by the rail track that connects two parts of town that otherwise seem to have no other joining. The winemakers still occupy their chateaux, not to be seen, but to be lived in. We had several wines and all were excellent and refined. Like Vouvray, these are white wines made from the chenin blanc grape, but their character is different. This has partly to do with the soil, a weathered schist rather than clay and limestone, and the weather, which is a little colder and damper. The wines themselves range from off-dry to sweet, all with very good acidity. Typically, they have a nose of honey, lemon peel, and flowers, and a tinge of burnt toast that might be mistaken for oxidation, and are so different from any other wine that they managed to contribute to the surreal atmosphere. The best producer by far was Nicholas Joly, a controversial figure who has been a world leader in the biodynamic movement, but his neighbors craft exceptional examples of their own (and sell great bottles from the early ’90’s for a song).
From then we moved further west toward the coast, first to Angers, in which we saw the most impressive castle-chateau and the Apocalypse tapestries housed within. These were created on the order of the Duke of Anjou Louis I, between 1375 and 1380. Their sheer size is astonishing, originally 168m long and 5m high. There are 72 (out of 76, four being lost) scenes closely based on the Apocalypse of St. John. It takes a long while to make your way through the display room. Incredibly well preserved, with vivid color, complex composition, fantastical character of the subject and style to match it, the tapestries are unarguably “one of the greatest works of Western art”, quoting Jean Lurcat who discovered them in 1938.
The next city was Nantes. We had one of the best meals on our trip there. There, too, to our delight we stumbled onto an organ concert in the Cathedral of St. Pierre and St. Paul, incidentally a site where Henry IV signed the Edict of Nantes in 1598 trying to establish a sort of equality between the Protestants and the Catholics. It came after much bloodshed, including the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, which cost twenty thousand Huguenots their lives. Henry IV, of Navarre, a Huguenot himself before he converted to Catholicism in order to obtain the French crown (“Paris is worth a Mass,”), was largely criticized form both sides for this move. And though it ended the Wars of Religion when it was signed, it did not ultimately work. Not a hundred years later Louis XIV, revoked the Edict and caused large migrations of Protestants from France to England, Holland, and Germany.
We had an opportunity to reconnect with this piece of history the next day when we went to the Chateau of the Dukes of Brittany. It is the place responsible for our favorite quote of the trip, an exclamation by the afore-mentioned Henry IV: ”God’s teeth! No small beer, these dukes of Brittany!”, which he uttered on first encounter. The castle was much modified. So much so that, we think, the castle in Angers gives a better impression of what Henry IV must have seen. It is very interesting regardless and houses an informative museum, which at times seems never-ending. We will skip stories about Anne de Bretagne though, married to two kings, or about the role of Nantes as a premier port and its dark history as a major hub in slave trade. All of these and more were carefully detailed and illustrated in the museum.
We will move to simpler subjects instead to round up this update. La Baule is a beach town given three stars in our Michelin guide. Since in Oostende, Belgium, where weather did not cooperate, both of us had a craving for ocean swimming. We got that out of the way in La Baule. In general, however, the town is (borrowing from Three Men in a Boat Nadia was reading at the time of our visit) “much too manicured to be pleasant”. The beaches are carefully marked with prohibitive signs concerning picnicking, dog walking, and other activities deemed offensive by the mysterious beach administration in control of these matters. Still, the fine sand beach and the ocean made up for it. We spend the entire afternoon there. In the morning seagulls, a host of locals, and Matt were out gathering clams in the receded tide. We had those steamed in white wine for dinner along with ratatouille and the rougettes purchased at a local market. It was a separate adventure to get the water for cooking the clams, may be better to recount it in person. Late the next morning after another visit to the market we left for La Rochelle.
You probably noticed that we have long moved on from the Loire Valley so La Baule is where we will stop. (Don’t thank us!) The stories from Bordeaux will come next. We hope everyone is well. Please stay in touch. Cheers, Matt and Nadia