Troglodytes and Wine - Lots of Love, Buffy

The Cave

Our first stop in the Loire Valley was our hotel….we wanted to stop and unload before heading to out first wine tasting. Luckily they were right next door to each other. First let me tell you about our hotel – Le Clos de L’Hermitage. It was a cave!

I always enjoy staying in different types of hotels and now I can tick cave off my list! When we all initially walked into the hotel we had a MAJOR concern; it was so hot. However, we were informed that it would cool off to 18 degrees (it stays that all year round). When we did return later that night it had cooled off significantly and I will say I thoroughly enjoyed staying in it.

After dropping everything off we made our way to Caves Duhard – another cave. This place specializes in wine gastronomic and collection; they do not actually make wine here but buy, mix, and store it. We had a tour of the cave where all the wine is stored and then finished off with some tasting!

Dinner was in the small town of Amboise (the town we stayed in) and then it was off to bed in our cave.

The next morning we woke up bright (not so much) and early and headed off to some vineyards.

Wine Tasting

The first was Château Gaudrelle where we were greeted by Anemi, the biggest dog you have ever seen, that liked to play/carry rocks around. We had a tour of where the wine was made (again in caves) and then sampled some. The actual vineyard (where the grapes grow) was above us so we did not get to see that.

Friend for the Tour — Our friend for the entire tour!

Get rid of debris — Used to remove debris from the bottles (sparkling wine) – now this is done by machines.

The rest of the day was spent wondering around Amboise looking for a nice place to eat lunch. Later in the afternoon we headed off to our last winery, Cave des Producteurs de Montlouis, accept this time it was a co-op where they do not grow their own grapes but buy the juice from growers and then make the wine themselves.