04 January 2018

Chinon = sunshine = wine

The area around Chinon, southwest of the city of Tours, is called the Chinonais, and it's famous for its red wines. Here are a few photos full of sunshine, which means they resemble the sunny Chinon wines. I'm posting them for myself as a reminder that the wild, wet, and windy weather we are experiencing right now won't last forever. Click your mouse on the photos to enlarge them.




When in Chinon, you have plenty of opportunities to taste (French déguster) the local wines. Usually the tasting (la dégustation) is free, and it is polite to buy a bottle or two to thank the winemaker for giving you free samples. Prices are usually very reasonable compared to wine prices in the U.S.


I don't know anything about this label except what I read on the internet. It might be controversial. But to my eye it is a beautiful label. I don't remember the wine particularly. We must have bought a bottle of it when we first came to live here. I saved and scanned the label, printed it on a color printer, and then we put it in a frame that hangs on a wall in our house.


Grapes close up. That's what it's like around Chinon and across the Loire and Cher valleys. You can see them up close. You can touch them (but don't pick any without permission). You can take photos. And then you can taste them in a salle de dégustation or by buying some wine.


You can also taste the grapes, in the form of wine, in wine bars like this one that are scattered around the region. I can't wait for the return of sunny days like the one on which I took this photo outside Chinon.


And more grapes. These grow in the town of Chinon. As I said, you're never far from grapes in the Loire Valley. I keep telling myself that we're never all that far from sunshine either.

24 comments:

  1. The label shows the chateau without the restored roof. I think it's attractive. I'm not a fan of grapes, but I do like them in their liquid form.

    Hope chm is warm though this stormageddon on the east coast. My family says its quite cold.

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    1. Hi D., right now it is 25°F outside and it is supposed to go down in the low teens the next two days. We had a blanket of snow during the night. I'm all bundled up, and since I have been nursing a very bad cold for the last two weeks, I didn't put le nez dehors since before Christmas, and don't intend to go outside until it is somewhat warmer. I have enough food to sustain a long siege, so I stay put. Miss my desert!

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  2. In my N.C. home town on the coast, the current high temperatures are as low as the average low temperatures for the season. So the low temps are very low. I'm sure it's colder in the D.C. area where CHM is.

    Here in Saint-Aignan the low this morning was 13, and it's still 13 at noon. 13C is about 55F. Balmy.

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    1. Balmy is the right word!

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    2. We are having weather like early April's right now.

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  3. I love that Chinon bottle label. Very nice :)
    Judy

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    1. Here's the story of the controversy. The name on the Chinon wine label is Pierre "Chanau". Evidently, that name appeared on wines from Bordeau, Provence, Rhône, Bourgogne, and even Champagne at one time. Nobody understood who Monsieur Chanau was. Then it was revealed or at least hinted that Chanau might be an anagram for Auchan, the big French hypermarket chain.

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    2. OK that is a most interesting story. I wondered what you meant when you said controversy about the label.

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  4. i too love that label...warmed up to a balmy 25 now in western NC......but fierce wind so wind chill must be bad

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    1. See my sister Joanna's comment below for news of eastern NC. Stay warm.

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  5. I'd send you some Alabama sunshine if I could. It is cold though-20. I'm glad CHM is staying cosy in Arlington.

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    1. That's cold. You stay in and cosy too.

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    2. Thank you Evelyn and stay warm too.

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    3. Thank you Evelyn and stay warm too.

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    4. Thank you Evelyn and stay warm too.

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    5. Twice, I tried to post here with my tablet iPad and twice my comment disappeared. This time I try with my laptop. Let's see what happens. Google and tablet don't seem to have a friendly relationship!

      Thank you Evelyn and stay warm.

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  6. It's cold here and the ground is very white. The problem here is that freezing rain came first and coated the ground first so it is very dangerous to go out. Of course no work.

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    1. Stay in and if you do go out... well, don't. Be careful. It's still mild, windy, and wet here.

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  7. It is sunny and windy and surprisingly cold in Florida too !

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    1. No snow in J'ville? I wondered if you felt like you were back in Upstate NY.

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  8. Brrrrr......it’s 30c here today and temp heading upwards. 41c in Melbourne on Saturday. I'd rather have brrrrr.

    Loving your photos. I love Chinon. I only wish it was closer. Not sure how I'll go flying long haul any more.

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  9. Now it's chm having trouble with disappearing comments. After weeks of that I've had a couple survive here and there over the last few days. Strange are the ways of cyberspace.
    I tried recently to soak off a couple of wine labels to save them, as you did. But the glue must be different here, although they were French wines, because the labels never came loose and the paper just sogged out and disintegrated.

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    1. Emm, my disappearing comments seem to disappear only when I use my tablet. Every so often, Google ask for user name and password and that's a pain in the proverbial... neck! That never happens with my laptop. It seems my iPad doesn't remember my user names and passwords.

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    2. Emm, That's bad luck with the wine labels. Some are stuck on with water soluble glue, and some not. Some just won't come unstuck. Glad your comments are coming through now, at least sporadically.

      CHM, I gave up writing comments on my tablet a while back. It's just too much trouble, and like you, I too often see a long, detailed comment composed on the Android tablet just vanish into thin air.

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