loire wineries that do tours/wine-tastings?
 

Does anyone have names of wineries in the Loire Valley that do tours or wine-tastings? (For a self-drive day tour of the Loire region, ending with a night spent at the Chateau de Chissay, near Montrichard)

Thank you!!

Topping.

Anyone?

abbynicole - I think your best best would be to email the Chateau de Chissay and ask for their help. I have been to a wine-tasting in the Loire but it was part of our organised walk and long ago so unfortunately don't recall the name of the little private vineyard.
There is bound to be some info on the net. Why don't you surf around a bit?

Couly Dutheil has a tasting room, etc., and is conveniently located across the street from the castle in Chinon.
http://www.coulydutheil-chinon.com/index_fr.php?m=5

Also stop in at the Maison du Vin in Saumur and Angers...you can taste a variety of wines for free, the staff will then either sell you wines there or help you arrange a visit to the wineries for your favorites.
http://www.vinsvaldeloire.fr/en_EN/v...sons_vins.aspx

Also has similar listings for Touraine.

The Loire Valley's wine site provide tons of information. You can contact them for specific info or join their forum.

http://www.vinsvaldeloire.fr/en%5FEN/

The fizzy houses tend to operate tours on a turn up and use it basis i.e. chateau Longlois or the makers of Cardinal (use google)and are pretty interesting. The Maisons du vin are useless for tasting (I like them but they know very little) but can put you in touch with local companies as will many of the village web sites. Try the Vouvray one and they may put you in touch say with George Brunet who, if you book and buy wine, will let you in.

We found the staff at the Saumur and Angers Maisons du Vin staff very helpful and knowledgeable about the wines we tasted. They knew the vintners and told us quite a bit about the different wines we tried. We stopped at the Angers MdV in 2004, 2005 and 2006 and none of their staff struck us as "useless" in any definition of the term.

Btilke, you may be right I guess it is about the levels of knowledge and the ability to put it over. I have tasted in both Maison a couple of times and found them to be charming, pleasant individuals with a limited knowledge (after all they have to talk about a lot of areas, wineries etc) compared to the sole producer talking about just his/her wine or hillside.

If you want a good over view of say Saumur Champigney they can explain why this producer does this or that, however to understand really what hapepns you need to talk to "the man" and hence the benefit of tasting and talking. For me I need the man

I had really good time in the Loire Valley when I by chance attended the Salon des vins de Chinon. I got to taste lots of wine have great food etc. You should check to see if there is a Foire or a Salon des vins somewhere in the Loire whenever you are going.

Also, for many of the small labels you can just turn up and have a tour as they sell from home.

Saumur, Bourgeuil, Vovray and Mont St Louis (sp?), all near Tours i believe are the three largest grouping of wineries in the Loire, though they are all over as well.

Bourgeuil sits in a swirl of vineyards and several wineries are clustered in this small town.

Vouvray of course is very famous and is close to Tours - again several wine houses open for tastings and buying

Mont Saint Louis, near Tours ditto.

just drive to those locales and have several to chose from.

The Loire's most prestigious vinticulture area i believe is much farther upstream, around Sancerre.

Sancerre is the most prestigious but staying in Montrichard would add to the drive time. For Sancerre, it would probably be better to make Bourges or Sancerre itself the base.
Also, Bilbob, one of reasons we liked the MdV is that you can taste a variety of wines and THEN go visit the vinyards of the wines you like best. Stopping at a Maison du Vin doesn't mean you then can't go on to the wineries themselves. With just a short trip, pre-tasting helps minimize the risk of going to a winery, doing the tour, etc. and then finding out you don't like the wines that much and wishing you had gone elsewhere. We visited a couple of wineries because we liked what we had tasted at the MdV (and also at the restaurant La Ferme in Angers).

Thanks everyone - I appreciate the help.

ttt