Announcement: Loire Valley 2024 by ombiasy WineTours (Sunday, June 09 - Thursday June 20, 2024)

  

   

 

Dear wine friends,

I just got back from a 10 day trip to the Loire Valley verifying hotels, meeting many wine domaine owners, checking out restaurants and finding the best travel routes.

I am still glowing about the hospitality of the people I met, the stunning beauty of the châteaux, my amazement at the skills in the 14th, 15th, 16th century to create such huge, impressive buildings, and the exceptional high quality of the wines across the board. I learned to love Cabernet Franc from the Saumur-Champigny region. These wines are simply delicious, the tannins are tamed and the fruit is just beguiling. Of course I also visited some of the magnificent châteaux and even stayed a couple of nights in a small château to completely “feel” the Loire Valley and its incredible history (we will stay there too on the wine tour). The Loire river was wild at this time of the year and had overflowed its banks in large areas.

The Loire Valley is a huge wine region spanning from Muscadet in the west to Sancerre in the east bordering the Burgundy region and then south to the Auvergne mountains parallel to southern Beaujolais and the Côte Rôtie. This vast region has about 185,000 acres of vineyards, most of which are on the hillside banks of the river. The Loire Valley is home to 87 appellations and produces wines of a sheer diversity of styles and varietals, ranging from bone dry to sticky sweet dessert wines, red, white, rosé, vinified in both still and sparkling format. Signature grapes are Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc for the whites and Cabernet Franc for the reds. However, there are several autochthonous varieties which are worth exploring and which we will learn to appreciate on this trip. 

The Loire Valley’s viticulture is steeped in history and still today has a cohesive artisan wine culture. It respects tradition but is at the same time dynamic and experimental. It is the Loire wine region where biodynamic wine production took off and subsequently this region has become the spiritual home of natural winemaking. Currently three quarters of wineries and about 80% of the vineyards have achieved some sort of environmental accreditation.

I am about to finishing up the final itinerary and it should be on my website by the end of this week. I have two rooms (sgl or dbl occupancy) left for this trip. You can sign up on my website: https://ombiasypr.com/index.php/wine-tours/loire/loire-registration

FALL WINE TOURS:

GERMANY: the classic Rhein and Mosel regions: Tuesday, August 27 - Thursday, September 10, 2024: The tour starts in Mainz and ends in Frankfurt.

We travel along the main wine arteries of Germany: the Rhine river, the Mosel river, and the much smaller Ahr and Nahe rivers. Roman, medieval, and modern history accompany us all the way and will help us to understand what German wine is all about. The beauty of the landscape, the steep vineyards, the romantic Rhine valley, the quaint villages, the stories behind the wineries and their families, and the gorgeous wines we will taste at world-renowned estates will give us a renewed understanding of German wines. This is Riesling country and the spot on the planet where the Riesling grape developed tausend years ago, and subsequently morphed into the best white wine grape for producing crisp, fruity, elegant, delicious wines. There is one exception: the tiny Ahr valley and Assmanshausen in the Rheingau where Pinot Noir always was and still is king. If you are a Riesling fan, this is the ultimate tour for you.

RHÔNE:  Northern and Southern Rhône: Sunday, October 13 - Wednesday, October 23, 2024: The tour starts in Lyon and ends in Avignon.

Join us as we explore in detail the wines of the Rhône Valley. We start in vibrant, cool, sophisticated Lyon, the capital of Haut Cuisine. We stop in the Northern Rhône where names such as Côte Rôtie, Crozes-Hermitage make us crave a glass of wine. We follow the eponymous Rhône river south to Avignon, the city that was the seat of the papacy for the better part of the 14th century. We stop in Châteauneuf du Pape. We do a side-kick to the gorgeous Dentelles de Montmirail where we find the wines of Gigondas, Vacqueyras, Séguret, and the sweet wines of Rasteau. The southern Rhône belongs to Provence. Provence: this immediately ignites a deep yearning for the fragrance coming from Lavender fields, for the special light the Impressionist artists masterfully captured in their paintings, for a very special "savoir vivre", and for the dark red, fruity, spicy wines.

Don’t hesitate to contact me via telephone, WhatsApp or email for any questions you may have. I am happy to speak with you.  I am currently in Germany. I return to the US on February 27. 

Enjoy the President's Day holiday weekend.

Best

Annette

Wine Tours - Wine Education - Wine Events

Annette Schiller, Diplom-Volkswirt

Washington DC - Frankfurt am Main

USA: Ph and WhatsApp +1 703 459 7513

GER: Ph and WhatsApp +49 -177 337 0281

www.ombiasypr.com

Office:

6404 Woodsong Ct

McLean, VA 22101 - USA

Postings on Schiller-wine Related to the Upcoming 2024 Loire Trip by ombiasy WineTours

This is the third in a series of postings on Schiller-wine Related to the February 2024 Loire Trip: 

A Journey Through The Loire Valley - Seminar at the 2023 American Wine Society National Conference in St. Louis/ Missouri/ USA led by Annette Schiller

Plateau des Fruits de Mer and a Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Sur Lie at Historic Brasserie Cigale in Nantes, Loire Valley, France (February 2024)