WINES OF VAL DE LOIRE

THE TOURIST ROAD OF VINEYARDS OF TOURAINE-VAL DE LOIRE
Between stocks and cellars, far from the ways with great circulation, the touristic Road of the vineyards of Touraine-Val de Loire is made up of soft and green landscapes, that are as varied as the soils of the garden of France. It will enable you to join the whole of the touristic places, which they are impossible to circumvent or unusual. A path chosen for the beauty of its landscapes, the touristic Road of the vineyards of Touraine-Val de Loire is an invitation to meet "Touraine ", that of the interior, that where one wants to delay, due to the fact that the landscapes are modelled by the spirit and the hand of the man.
Farming ways, habitat, way of life, wine festivals and gluttonous appointments make it possible to penetrate there. Here, seasons rythmitize the days... This inheritance is the richness and the memory of the area. The castles and monuments integrated in this landscape find the dimension in which they were conceived. And if it is true, like says it Colette, that "only the vine renders us understandable of what is the true savour of the ground", then the touristic Road of the vineyards Touraine-Val de Loire will sing, throughout its 800 kilometers of routes, the richness of its inheritance and the savour of its soils.

TRAVEL INTO THE HEART OF TUFFEAU
the tuffeau, tender and white chalk, was used as material for the construction of the royal castles, the abbeys and residences of character. Associated to the slate, it marks the habitat of Touraine. By modelling the landscape, it conditions the human activities. It is by visiting the troglodytic achievements, that are architectural as much as sociological testimonys, that one discovers the world of the tuffeau. Religious architecture coasts the profane architecture. The troglodytic houses, that are very often discrete, recall that at a certain time, stone constructions were the prerogative of the richest people. Mushroom beds and especially cellars of wines found a place of predilection there.
The family cellars sheltering the successive vintages of the artisanal productions, the kilometers of galleries of important fields dug in the cliff, all have ideal qualities of a cellar that a number of areas can envy.
In Touraine, the "divine nectar" ages in the shelter from the clashes and the variations of the world...
The visit of a cellar always represents a moment of mystery that is a rich of feelings. Familiarized little by little with the chiaroscuro and the odors, you will guess the alignments of barrels against the wet rock, the piles of old bottles lit by bulbs posed on powerlines traversing the galleries, or the secular desk intended to collect the dregs before the discharging and the addition of liquor of the "traditional methods".
Your host, with a legendary user-friendliness here, will be able to exhume an old bottle or to make taste the last-born, to speak about the way in which one sees the world in this Touraine of which the wines made dream the kings and inspired a number of writers...

THE VINE GROWERS OF THE TOURISTIC CELLAR
In the middle of Touraine and its castles, the TOURISTIC CELLAR OF MONTLOUIS is located halfway between Tours and Amboise, on the left ank (on the site surrounded of limes, vis-a-vis to the bunch of reason of the edge of Loire). Founded in 1969, the Touristic Cellar gathers 25 vine growers who are independent of the appellation ( (made up of 3 communes of Lussault-sur-Loire, St-Martin-le-beau and Montlouis-sur-Loire). Those propose to you within the remarkable framework of a cellar dug in the rock in the Middle Ages, to discover all the range of the white high-class wines of MONTLOUIS, coming fromthe only type of vine Chemin. Ranging from the dry, half-dry, marrowy and liqueur-like while passing by the traditional methods as well as red and rosy Touraines. The visit of the sites is enbellished by a small museum recalling the culture of the vine in the 19 th century.