I have been shamefully neglectful of The Kitchen Winery of late. Being in the middle of trying to buy our first flat is my principal excuse at the moment – good Lord it’s stressful. I always looked at people complaining about the horrors of house-buying with complete impatience and mild disgust – oh poor you, going through the dreadful experience of BUYING YOUR OWN HOME must be simply dreadful for you – but I have to admit the joy and romance of the whole business wore off in about 30secs leaving me feeling a little naive and really quite cross with everything house-related 99% of the time.

But the guilt has been eating away at me and everyone I see asks me “what’s happened to your blog?” (actually ‘everyone’ is obviously a massive exaggeration but you know, the odd one or two people). So a trip to the Loire Valley last week left me officially run out of excuses and so here I am, back again, and I will endeavour to pick up more of less where I left off, although perhaps with a little less frequency.

The Loire Valley, I discovered, is really very beautiful. It refers to the area surrounding the river Loire which starts in the Massif Central and ends in Nantes where it meets the Atlantic Ocean. It includes different climates and terroirs along the way and it is along La Loire that you find appellations such as Muscadet, Vouvray, Chinon, Pouilly-Fume and Sancerre. Though famous for its Sauvignon Blancs, this grape shockingly only accounts for 10% of the overall plantings of the region. Though Pouilly-Fume and Sancerre may be the most well known styles they are in no way the most plentiful which of course contributes to their higher price points. For a wine in a similar style to Sancerre or Pouilly-Fume but a bit more affordable opt for a Sauvignon Blanc from the Touraine region which will show many similar characteristics.

We tried so many wines while we were there but the main grape variety I’d like to focus on is Chenin Blanc. There are some stunning dry Chenin Blancs from the likes of Vouvray and Anjou but Chenin can be used to make some really beautiful sweet wines as well. One of the highlights of the trip for me was visiting Chateau La Fesles where they make several styles of wine but most notably they produce Bonnezeaux. This may not be something you’ve come across before, and indeed there’s not a huge amount around, but Bonnezeaux is a fantastic sweet wine appellation within the Loire Valley. There are only around 30 Bonnezeaux producers in the Loire and Chateau La Fesles have 30ha out of approximately 100ha altogether so are by far the biggest producer, but still pretty small by general standards.

The grape variety is, as I’ve said, Chenin Blanc – the grapes are left on the vine until they are really really ripe and beginning to dry; they are therefore picked late in the year when the sugars in the grapes are very concentrated. A small proportion of the grapes will inevitably have been affected by the same noble rot as is found in the Sauternes region, botrytis cinerea, but interestingly, whereas this is encouraged as much as possible in Sauternes, it is not really desired in Bonnezeaux. Rather than attempting to copy Sauternes they are trying to stay in keeping with the classic style of the Loire and to produce a wine that is fresher, more aromatic and much lighter.

We were lucky enough to try a range of vintages of Chateau La Fesles Bonnezeaux – 2007, 2010, 2000 and 1993 in that order – and you could really see the differences between them. The 2007 was very classic Bonnezeaux with flavours of marmalade and honey; the 2010 was an outstanding vintage and was fuller with much more intensity of flavour; 2000 had had a much higher proportion of botrytis affected grapes and you could see why they didn’t desire it in the vineyard – for me the wine lacked freshness and tasted a little clumsy; finally 1993 which was fascinating – still intensely sweet but with savoury flavour characteristics and a salty/nutty flavour reminiscent of sherry.

There were countless other wines we tried in the 3 days we were there and if you ever get the chance to go I couldn’t recommend it enough. And if you do get a chance to try Bonnezeaux one day, or see one on a wine list in a restaurant, then go for it as they really are wonderful wines.