Wobbling Winos: Day 64 - La Charite-sur-Loire to St-Pere.

Day 64. La Charite-sur-Loire to St-Pere (near Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire). 42km, 2h40.

We had a later start as we planned a shorter ride to Poully-sur-Loire for our first encounter with Sauvignon Blanc on this journey. We self-catered for breakfast again - sweet-melon, croissants and baguettes with (perhaps) duck pâté and a generous lathering of duck fat. The Velo-fellows, the group of Eurovelo 6 cyclists were in La Charite as we came down the hill, so we stopped to chat to the Kiwis, Lisa and Ralph, as we hadn't seen them for a few days.

La Charite is a charming old medieval town overlooking the Loire. It developed on an old pilgrim route and the remains of the 11th century Order of Cluny monastery still dominate the entrance. At the time the Priory Church of Notre-Dame was the second largest Christian church. The stone bridge across the Loire was built in 1520 and is still in use. The name La Charite supposedly came from the generosity of the priests to the pilgrims on the Way to Vezelay. Today La Charite is known as "the town of words", as they host an annual literary festival, and there are numerous antique bookshops and book restoration specialists.

We had an easy cycle to Poully-sur-Loire where we planned our attack on the wineries over a cup of coffee. Our first stop was Domaine Bardin where we were given a cool reception by a snooty woman, who poured us a sip of their Poully-sur-Loire wine, probably chasselas - rubbish (WWS 4). "Have a nice day, Madame!". We rapidly moved on to Domaine de Bel Air down the road, where the young daughter showed us their 4 wines, a young Chasselas and 3 Sauvignon Blancs. All still needed some time to reach their potential, but we liked the small winery.

Following this we popped into Bruno Blondelet. Here we had to pay for the tasting, but the winemaker's wife who runs the marketing, gave us a good overview of the various terriors of the region. There are essentially 3 very different soil types here: limestone, flint or silex, and caltrate with a high concentration of fossils. The fossils on display both here and at Domaine Michel Redde were amazing. At Blondelet they use mechanical harvesting, as they found labour to be unreliable.

After a plat de jour across the road at Chez Memez, we cycled off to Domaine Michel Redde et Fils. Here we were given an excellent tasting by France. The difference between the three Sauvignon Blancs from the three types of soil was very interesting. Redde is the third largest producer in the region; they have gone back to using manual labour again for the picking of their grapes. The Reddes have been making wine here since 1630! We finished with the 2011 Marjorum, an excellent Sauvignon Blanc from 40-year-old vineyards of Albians Flints and Kimmeridgian marls with small oyster fossils. The wine was left on the lees for 10 - 12 months.

We then had a cycle in the afternoon heat to St Pere, a few kilometers from Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire). One of the absurdities of France is that you can't book into overnight accommodation before 5pm. After cycling for most of the day, it would be really nice to have a shower and get the washing done, so one can enjoy the evening. So while we were waiting for our Chambre d'Hote to open, we popped into the winery next door (Domaine Couet) to taste their SB and Pinot Noir. The Pinot was surprisingly good and very reasonable - so guess what we had with our picnic tuna salad on the lawn.