Paris Digest
Paris city guide since 1997
The Loire Valley is also known as the garden of France. The last wild river in Europe, the Loire river combines beautiful 16th century castles and great wines. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Loire Valley is one hour from Paris by train and two hours by car. The Loire Valley wine tours from Paris combine the best sightseeing and wine tasting. Paris wine tours.
One hour from Paris by superfast train, the famous TGV, two hours by car, the Loire Valley combines famous renaissance castles such as Chambord, Chenonceaux, Blois, Amboise and Cheverny, with top French wines: Cabernet and Gamay red wines, Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon white wines.
There are unique one day tours from Paris that are practical, affordable and provide a full view of France countryside.
Visiting the Châteaux on a one day coach tour from Paris can be a highlight of a France trip. You’ll visit the Château de Chenonceau and the Château de Chambord, two of the Loire Valley’s most illustrious Châteaux.
In addition to beautiful castles, the Loire Valley boasts some of the best red and white French wines.
The Loire Valley wines are distinguished from the wines from south of France by their freshness, fruit and great digestibility. The vineyards of the Loire Valley have no hierarchy of soils, as in Burgundy, nor historical classification as in Bordeaux. It is less easy to identify the best producers. Yet this region is a gold mine for the wine lover due to its three strengths: diversity, quality and price.
The Loire Valley can produce anything from liqueur to dry wine, from the fruity flavor, close to the grape, to the mineral flavor from the terroir. Today, wine production is generally qualitative, with the impact of a new generation of artist winemakers returning to a more careful and less productive viticulture, while respecting the grapes in winemaking.
The Loire Valley is full of good deals, such as these beautiful wines less than 6 euros in Touraine, or these great cabernets of Champigny and Chinon for less than 15 euros.
The Loire Valley vineyard is the third major French appellation wine region, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Covering an area of 70,000 hectares, the vineyard is divided between Nantes, Anjou, Saumurois, Touraine and Orléanais. The Loire Valley is particularly blessed by nature, because it has a temperate climate and an impressive diversity of terroirs which have allowed the birth of very varied, fresh and balanced wines thanks to the Loire. The region produces still wines, white reds and rosés but also sparkling wines of fine bubbles. Its soil and subsoil is made up of very diverse materials: sand, chalk or tufa, clay-limestone, clay-flint, sandstone schists, granites and gravels. The white grape varieties are Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon, and Chardonnay. The red grape varieties are Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Gamay.
Some of the 85 appellations are well known: Chinon, Bourgueil, Pouilly-Fumé, Sancerre, Coteaux du Layon, Muscadet, Vouvray, Cheverny, Saint-Pourçain. With around ten cultivated grape varieties, the Loire Valley expresses the nuances of its rich subsoil. To preserve this diversity, two major climates, oceanic to the west and continental influence to the east, share the vineyard. This alchemy between climate, grape variety and know-how gives Loire wines an incomparable finesse and elegance. This balance is reflected in the wines, whether red or white, to drink rather young, even if some have very good aging potential.
