NEW!!   Escorted Wine Tours in the Loire Valley

We now are able to offer guests a privately conducted wine tour. 

Discover the 'world of wine' with a bilingual French wine professional!!  There are a number of options available through this local company. We arrange the appointments, once you have decided which of the exciting tours you wish to take. Including one where you taste 17 different appellations and are chauffeured!!

For more information ask us for details of this new and exciting opportunity for guests of Les Fleurs self catering cottages in the Loire.

The Saumur and Anjou wine region offers many appellations including Saumur Champigny a relatively new creation a vibrant, fresh, mineral-stony-perfumed red (when at its best) which makes lovely summer drinking or, less commonly, a darker, more serious, old vines cuvée which does well in the cellar for a few years.

The Coteaux du Layon appellation was delimited in 1950, and covers 27 communes that line the Layon as it flows at first northeast, and then northwest, towards the Loire. This is a region that produces simply fabulous wines. Here Chenin Blanc, grown on primarily schistous soils and aided by the Layon which promotes the development of Noble Rot, produces lusciously sweet wines that display a captivating array of aromas both in youth and in their dotage. Maximum permitted yields under INAO regulations for this appellation are 35 hl/ha, and the must requires a minimum 204 g/l of sugar, leaving at least 34 g/l residual sugar after fermentation. Wines produced from six of the Coteaux du Layon communes are entitled to append their name to that of the appellation on the label provided the wines also meet more stringent criteria, including a reduction to 30 hl/ha and a must concentration of 221 g/l of sugar. Four of these communes, namely Faye-d'Anjou, Rablay-sur-Layon, Beaulieu-sur-Layon and St-Aubin-de-Luigné (one of the more commonly seen on labels, often abbreviated to just St-Aubin), lie right on the Layon as it flows northwest.

There are many other fabulous appellations to sample!