'Céré-la-Blonde' or Céré-la-Ronde – one of the quiet villages the Tour will pass through today
(Céré-la-Blonde – squeeze the blonde)

Montrichard and its fortress: where the Tour crosses the Cher

This is very much a transition stage, taking the riders from the north west of France to the more hilly Massif Central as well as the last glimpse the 2011 Tour will have of the Loire. At 218 kilomtres this is long stage (not quite as long as yesterday) and the flattest of this year's Tour.

Last year David McDuff of McDuff’s Food & Wine asked me to contribute a post on the stage from Montargis to Guegnon. He had asked me to do the same this year and suggesting this seventh stage. However, as David’s blog appears to be resting, I will post what I would have sent him here on Jim’s Loire.

The stage starts in Le Mans, famous for the 24-hour car race as well as a 24-hour motorbike race. It is also justly famous for its pork rillettes.

The stage heads south east to the valley of Le Loir towards La Chartre-sur-Le-Loir and Jasnières. Certainly some candidates here for the Vigneron of the stage, although to qualify the race has to pass right by the winery or very close to it. This rules out obvious candidates like Eric Nicolas. As I have chosen two producers from Touraine I will have to cheat and nominate at least one Jasnières producer for tomorrow's stage.

At L'Homme the race turns east staying on the north bank of Le Loir to Trôo, famous for its troglodyte houses. The late Jane Grigson, a leading food writer, had a holiday home here. Then it's on to the attractive little town of Montoire, where on 24th October 1940 Maréchal Petain and Adolf Hitler met and Petain agreed to collaborate with the Germans with the setting up of Vichy France. Montoire is on the western edge of the AC Coteaux du Vendômois.

The race crosses Le Loir here and heads south eastwards through to Le Loir's big sister. La Loire is crossed at Chaumont just beyond the most easterly point of the Touraine-Amboise appellation. Château de Chaumont's biggest current claim to fame is its annual garden festival, which runs from April right through to mid-October.

Château de Chaumont

Château de Chenonceau on the Cher

Diane de Poitiers was moved to Chaumont after she was booted out of Château de Chenonceau by Catherine of Medici, wife of Henri II, following the king's death. Obviously Catherine decided that once Henri had died there was no point allowing his mistress to remain in the lovely Chenonceau. Diane apparently didn’t find Chaumont to her taste and moved further north to Anet.

Once past Chaumont the race heads towards Montrichard and its 11^th century fortress built by Foulques Nerra that overlooks both the town and the River Cher. This is just one of the myriad fortresses where Richard Coeur de Lion was imprisoned and yet another one from which he escaped.

The bridge over the Cher linking Montrichard on north bank with Faverolles on the south

Reaching the Cher Valley brings the riders to the last vines they will see on this stage and, indeed, for the next few days. As they start the short climb out of the Cher Valley at Faverolles, they pass La Route de Tours, now a cul-de-sac but previously the main road along the Cher Valley to Tours. Here are my two Vignerons de l'Etape: Pascal Potaire (see here) and Mikaël Bouges.

Mikaël Bouges

Pascal Potaire

Next up is Céré-la-Ronde famous for its goats. There is an annual goat fair held here at the end of October. This is very much Chèvre (goats’ cheese) country and it lies in several cheese appellations including Sainte-Maure, Selles-sur-Cher and Valençay.

The last time the Tour passed through this part of the Cher Valley was in 1992 when French sprinter Thierry Marie won the stage from Montluçon to Tours. The race came through Genillé, le Liège and Luzillé and on to Tours. Overall winner that year was Big Mig (Miguel Indurain), who won the time trial the next day from Tours to Blois.

After Céré the route is gently undulating through peaceful agricultural land passing through the small towns of Nouans-les-Fontaines and Ecueillé before reaching Pellevoisin at 178 metres the high point of the stage. (The lowest point was 61 metres crossing the Cher at Montrichard.) At Buzançais there is the intermediate sprint – very late in the stage this time.

Here the riders reach the long flat approach to Châteauroux. Mark Cavendish won his first Tour stage here and he must be hoping to win again here as this is a classic bunch sprint with flat wide open roads. Cav or another sprinter could easily pick up 70 points towards the green jersey today.

The weather forecast is rather mixed - showers around Le Mans for the start becoming rarer as the riders head south. A few isolated showers south of the Cher with a dry finish at Châteauroux. Let's hope that is the way it pans out!

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Living the life in Saint-Aignan (Ken Broadhurst) prepares to watch the Tour pass today.

Olivier Lemasson

On the afternoon of Saturday 7th may we headed across to Fougères-sur-Bièvre to the portes ouvertes held by Olivier Lemasson (Les Vins Contés), which featured a few other vignerons in addition to Olivier.

Pascal Potaire (roi des PetNats)

I started with Pascal Potaire, who we had intended to see a couple of weeks earlier when he was at an open day in Cheverny with Philippe Tessier, when our car developed a radiator problem and so forced us to creep back to Epeigné instead.

My favourite wine from Pascal was the agreeable and easy-drinking 2010 Rosé PetNat, a blend of 2/3 Côt and 1/3 Gamay. With red fruits to the fore it will make a fine summer apéro. The 2009 Orbois Menu Pineau is quite soft and weighty but mineral in the finish. Pascal makes good Menu Pineau, which are often more mineral and austere than the 2009 but this reflects the richer nature of the vintage. They age well. The 2008 Vignnason Sauvignon Blanc has some varietal character and length but I found the other two wines he was showing more interesting. 

Jérôme Lenoir

Next was Jérôme Lenoir, who with his dad – Alain, has 3.5 hectares in Beaumont-en-Véron (AC Chinon) planted on north-facing slopes. He had various vintages to taste 2001, 2003, 1989 and 1990. The 2001 and 2003 were quite light, although delicate. I preferred the more concentrated 1989 and 1990, although both also had delicacy. 

New producer: Jérémy Quastana 

The owner of Jérémy Quastana, who has two hectares in Touraine, was showing of a couple of wines from his first vintage. Firstly 2010 Buena Onda, a fun, clean, lightly sweet PetNat Rosé made from Gamay. Then a juicy, concentrated, still Gamay called L'insurgé with fair length.  

2010 L'insurge (above and below)

Olivier Lemasson has three hectares of his own vines in Monthou-sur-Bièvre and buys in grapes from a further six hectares. We started with the attractively ripe 2010 Sois Mignon made from 70 year old Sauvignon Blanc vines. Then onto the clean and precise 2010 bOis saNs sOif that is an equal blend of Menu Pineau and Romorantin, which should keep well. The funky but spicy and juicy 2010 Le P'tit Rouquin (Gamay from 20 year old vines) was the first red. 2010 Poivre et sel followed showing the typical spicy notes of a Pineau d'Aunis. R10 is a blend of Gamay, Pinot Noir, Grolleau, Pineau d'Aunis and Côt with attractive, sweet spicy fruit and good length although with slightly grainy tannins – it has 40 days of macération.

2010 Gama Sutra is all Gamay from 100 year old vines with ripe concentration and length. I finished with the fine, rich and long 2009 Cheville de Fer – Côt from vines between 20 and 50 years old. It spends a year in demi-muids (barrels normally of 500/600 litre size). This cuvée should age well.

  Marc Pesnot

The last producer was Marc Pesnot of the Domaine de la Sénéchalière in the Pays Nantais. Marc is careful to stress that although he uses Melon de Bourgogne he doesn't make Muscadet. "In 2001 I decided to take another route from Muscadet," he explains. The first wine was the 2010 La Bohême, which has some slight oxidation and sweetness. I liked the second wine much better: the 2010 Cuvée Miss Terre from old vine Melon, which has good concentration, minerality and length. Unusually Nuitage is made by treating the Melon grapes as though it was a typical Beaujolas as it has a 12-hour carbonic maceration. "To liberate the grapes' perfume," explains Marc. The 2009 has touch of white flower and is certainly very different from a traditional Muscadet. Fascinating character and wines worth exploring further, Marc is someone I need to see when I'm next in the Pays Nantais.  

Marc Pesnot

 

Passat on its way...

After spending an hour and a half tasting at the Foire aux Vins at Amboise on Saturday we headed off towards Cheverny to the open day at Domaine Philippe Tessier where Pascal Potaire was also showing hios wines. Sadly a fault in the radiator of our Passat meant that we didn't get there. At Pontlevoy the warning sign came on and told us to stop immediately, which we did. After a few minutes we switched on again – the warning sign stayed off. Unwilling to take any risk we drove cautiously back to Epeigné. 

We decided to try again on Monday but the warning sign came on immediately, so we had to contact our travel assistance, who arranged for the car to be picked up on Tuesday morning and taken to the VW garage at Perusson, just to the east of Loches. It turns out that the raditor has to be replaced – ouch!

Passat parti!