Wine Collection

A TGV arriving at Tours station

The first TGV (Train de Grande Vitesse) arrived in Tours on 30th September 1990 bringing Paris just less than an hour away from Tours. The idea to build a TGV Atlantique network was conceived in 1976. The TGV Ouest has two branches one to Le Mans and the second to Tours. Work started in 1987 and the TGVs to Le Mans and beyond serving Angers, Nantes, Rennes etc. on the existing conventional lines started running in 1989. Those to Tours started running the next year.

The dedicated TGV line stops just to the south of Tours. Work is just beginning on the LGV (Ligne Grande Vitesse) extending the fast line to Bordeaux. The complete line is due to be finished in late 2015/ early 2016. When it opens Bordeaux will be 2.05 hours from Paris (3 hours now) and 1.40 from Tours (2.20 at present). The line is being built in two stages – Bordeaux-Angoulême (service starting in 2013) and Angoulême-Tours.

The Nouvelle Republique carries a couple of studies on two future high speed rail projects: the extension towards Bordeaux of the existing high speed line from Paris to Tours and a TGV Centre from Paris to Nevers and onto Clémont-Ferrand and Lyon.

The new line TGV Sud Europe Atlantique (LGV) is definitely due to go ahead with the section from Tours to Angoulême expected to open in 2016. The TGV Centre is considerably less certain – it might be in service around 2020, although apparently it hasn’t been identified as one of the rail projects that will add a further 2000 km of high speed lines to the French network by 2020. It would, however, have the advantage of reducing the pressure on the existing very busy Paris-Lyon line, the first TGV that was built.

There are three different routes through the region that the proposed TGV Centre might take. Both the direct and the one through Cosnes look as though they could threaten to go through the vineyards of Sancerre and Pouilly respectively.

The annual Fête de la Saint-Vincent (the wine saint) is celebrated in many of France's wine regions. Saint-Vincent's day falls on 22nd January but the celebrations are normally held on the weekend following as a long lunch is a customary centre-piece of the celebrations.