Loire wine tours - Sancerre

      Loire valley is widely known for its castles such as Chenonceau and Chambord, it is also known for the kings and the histories. French people even gave it a nickname: the garden of kings. 

Amboise sur Loire

      But how about wine tours in Loire valley? Well there is a lot of things to do! From this week on, we will give you information about wine tours in Loire valley, So let's pack and go! 

      Today we are going to talk about wine tours in the Sancerre appellation. On our blog, we've got several articles about the wine itself and the terroir of Sancerre, but what about the landscapes?

well... let's have a look...

      Amaaaazing isn't it?! The wines of this appellation are near the Loire river, just imagine: The hills, the Loire river, the vineyards and the sunshine...... It offers the most beautiful landscapes of the region! 

      A little history...
      The Romans arrived with Baccus in France in the 1st century AD, and they planted the first grape vines. In the middle age, the region was linked to the Duchy of Burgundy, which introduced Pinot noir vines into this area. In the late 19th century, because of the phylloxera crisis, the region was covered with Sauvignon blanc because it grafted better onto the American rootstocks. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the wine of Sancerre became world wide famous, with the help of a wave of quality consiciousness.

   
      The Sancerre village is a midieval town situated on a hill surrounded by vineyards. In the village there is a wine center called "la Maison des Sancerre" with its beautiful view and impressive architecture. When you arrive at the village, it is the ideal place to discover everything about Sancerre wines.

    It will be easy to book tours of the vineyards and there are a lot of wineshops that offer wine tastings in charming small medieval towns. Just drive along the river and discover this amazing appellation. 

PS : don't forget to sit down in a cosy restaurant and order a glass of Sancerre and seafood, it's the perfect match. And don't forget to taste the goat cheese at the end of meal!

When Sancerre from Loire Valley is invited in Bordeaux Tasting!

    Maison Joseph Mellot is celebrating this year his 500 birthday. For Bordeaux Tasting, Maison Joseph Mellot presents his vintage “special 500 ans”, the packaging was realized by a design school in Paris.

       

     “We are lucky, because people from Bordeaux knows our wines and appreciate us. This is the first time in Bordeaux tasting, and it’s a good opportunity to show our wines and our job.” Said Corentin Chon, Maison Joseph Mellot. “I think it’s a good way to present white dry wines in red wine environnement, it’s also nice to discover white dry wines from Bordeaux”.

   
    When we go to their stand, it’s time to discover Sauvignon, from the historical place in Loire Valley. The size of the wine estate is 100 hectares, 50% of the vines are in appellation Sancerre in the east of the appellation. “We’ve got 25 hectares on flint, and it is the most beautiful terroir of the appellation.” Sauvignon is the king of varietal there. The result in the bottle depends of the vines orientation, the richness and minerality of the soil and the wine making process. In this special vintage we can find citrus fruit aromas and box tree. The freshness is explosive, with a special minerality. We can associate this wine with shellfishes with lemon. 

    They have also another vintage : “la Grande Châtelaine 2010” made in oak barrel but with light aromas of brioche. The aromas of fruit are really dense, we have candied citrus aromas. We can match this wine with Christmas dishes : lobster, scallop.

      It’s Christmas soon, and it was already Christmas in the Palais de la Bourse for Bordeaux Tasting.

When Sancerre invites Chinese scallop to dance

     As we know, Sancerre white wine matches extraordinarily well with lots of seafood, but could Chinese vapored scallops match with a mineral and gorgeous Sancerre? In order to find the answer, we prepared two different bottles of Sancerre to do a tasting test, one of which, the crisper, more mineral and more intense one, won the Médaille d’Or in the Paris wine competition.

      Sometimes people say that seafood is easy to cook. On the contrary, Chinese seafood is very difficult to prepare, because if it’s just slightly overcooked then all the flavor will be gone. In addition, good Chinese seafood must not only keep the original texture of food, but also absorb every flavor from traditional condiments. For instance, with this vapored scallops, we added some Douchi sauce to improve the flavors.

Let us tell you about the recipe

Recipe for Chinese vapored scallops

Ingredients

Don’t even read this recipe if you don’t have a steam cooker :)

1. 12 great scallops (the bigger the better :D)
2. 120g of garlic (about 2 bulbs of garlics)
3. 100g of vermicelli
4. Half or one red bell pepper(green bell pepper is good too, for the better look)
5. 20ml of dry white wine (if you have “shaoxing”, a Chinese alcohol, it’s better)
6. Douchi sauce (Soy sauce if you don’t have it)
7. Salt and peanut oil

Let’s do it!

1. Macerate vermicelli with four times the volume of water for 30 mins
2. Wash the great scallops and open them with thin knives, if it is really hard for you, a safer and easier way, is to boil the water and give it a “bath” for 10 seconds, that will open it without cooking the scallop,”just open up, you kill joys“)
3. Take off the scallops and macerate them with wine and salt for 30 mins
4. While they are macerating, chop all garlic and red bell pepper (don’t mix them)
5. Saute garlic and red bell pepper separately (so that your dish looks better in the end)

The next step is a little difficult to measure, because you have to separate all the ingredients equally in every shell, so let me tell you how to do it! Before the next step, to save time you can heat the steam cooker.

Just after steam :) here is a simple to show you how much ingredients you should put on the shell

1. Put the ingredients in the shell in the following order: Vermicelli, scallop, garlic, red bell peppers, and a little bit of douchi sauce (i mean, really a little, like 5 drops, 8 tops)
2. When the water in the steam cooker is boiling, put all the prepared shells in it, and cook them for 10 mins
3. Serve them (careful, it burns!) and then bon appetit!!!

ALL DONE HERE XD

    When we did the matching of Food&Wine, we found that both of these two Sancerre matched very well with Chinese vapored scallops, Sauvignon’s freshness and high acidity can improve the taste of scallops, at the same time, a little Douchi sauce from scallops can make the wine smoother and softer. With the help of the mineral taste, we can feel a good relationship between the body of scallops and the structure of wine, that’s a very interesting matching. 

In the end, we give you some suggestions when you choose a bottle of Sancerre for your seafood:

1. the more mineral the better;

2. It shouldn’t be too fruity;

3. It can be very dry.

And last but not least, don’t forget to chill your Sancerre wine between 9-10°before you taste it. 

An interview with Chinese wine amateurs

L: Good morning Xiaolu, we are Loire Valley spectators. Welcome to our blog conversation. I’m very glad to see you again.

X: Thank you so much, it’s my pleasure to participate in this interview.

L: The last time you told me that you are very interested in wine from the Loire Valley, at the same time we received lots of demands for many foreign friends about the history of Loire chateaus, the royal family of Loire, and especially the wine of Loire Valley. That’s the reason why we created Loire Valley spectator’s Blog for the wine amateurs like you.

X: That’s great, in China, there are more and more wine amateurs who want to know more about wine besides the Bordeaux wine, I think your Blog is a good way to help us to study wines of Loire Valley. I would really like to thank you for that. 

L: It’s my pleasure. What do you know about the wine of Loire Valley? Have you ever tasted it before?

X: I’ve participated in an exposition of Loire wine in Shanghai in 2011. I’ve tasted a very good white wine, but I can’t remember the grape variety. That’s all I know about the wine of Loire Valley. Can you tell me something Important about the wine regions?

L: Absolutely, in fact the Loire Valley is at the center of France, it is famous for its natural scenes, marvelous châteaux and different kinds of wine. The region is rich in history and culture : Renaissance writer Rabelais was born here; Joan of Arc led French troops to victory in the Hundred Years’ War in the Loire; and it’s known as the Cradle of the French Language. The Loire Valley contains 5 distinct wine regions, from west to east we have : Pays Nantais, Anjou, Saumur, Touraine and Centre-Loire, each with its own grapes varieties, terroirs and micro climates.

X:  That sounds interesting, but I don’t know which region produces which kind of wine, can you explain it to me?

L: It’s difficult to separate the wine by region, because we usually find the same style of wine in different regions. So, in Loire Valley, we separate the different wines by their grape varieties, for example:

Crisp Dry White Varietals: Melon de Bourgogne, Romorantin, Sauvignon Blanc

Rich Aromatic White Varietals: Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc

Sweet Varietals: Chenin Blanc

Dry Rosé Varietals: Cabernet Franc, Grolleau, Pinot Gris

Off-Dry Rosé Varietals: Cabernet Franc, Grolleau

Fruity Red Varietals: Gamay, Pineau d’Aunis, Pinot Noir

Earthy Red Varietals: Cabernet Franc, Malbec

Sparkling Varietals: Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc, Grolleau

X: Wow, there are so many kinds of wines in Loire Valley, I think I need sometime to remember these.

L: No, you don’t need to remember all of these, it’s better to remember when you taste the wine. Furthermore, we are going to prepare a fantastic tasting of Loire wine for our friends who are interested in Loire wine, I’ll let you know about the date.

X: That sounds great, Thanks a lot.

L: Thank you for attending our blog conversation too.