One lesson learned: free parking in Saumur is not worth it.
Especially when the Vienne River, which gives the watery moderation to Chinon further east, overflows and impacts the Loire River (in Saumur, where they connect) in that that way (photo 1 of 9).
Life in a flat in Saumur means drying what you have washed on whatever surface is available. I call this: Chaussettes en Arrives (photo 5).
Being a soft Californian, I bundled up for a number of our outings up and down the rivers. My wife, of much heartier stock…maybe it’s just a rainy childhood in Oregon, only needed the coat. Photo 2, a selfie in the vineyards of Sebastien du Petit Thouars, a Saumur-Champigny producer overseeing lovely wine and an 800-year old castle. The juxtaposition of our visit there was wonderful: the stink of history in millennial stone all around us, and the 13th Georges of the family kicking a soccer ball around the clos as visitors drank the family’s wine while lunching on the gloriously ubiquitous cheese and meat of the region.
My love enters the secret garden (photo 3) of the caves of Chateau de Coulaine, a Chinon producer recommended by our friend Mathieu Baudry. Beth and I and our Saumur bunk-mates, Rebecca Navarro and Matt Toomey, had a lovely time touring the estate and tasting the wines with Tatiana Bonnaventure, who, with her husband, Jean-Dennys, make the wine and run the property.
The Chateau de Coulaine estate has been making wine since the 1400s and makes a range of offerings from the Chenin Blanc whites and roses of Cabernet Franc to increasingly more poetic reds sculpted from the gorgeous Franc of the estate (photo 4).
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