La Fermette

Time flies when you’re renovating a gite in the Loire valley. I have trouble believing it’s 3 month since I added anything to this blog!

I’ve meant to do more, but sometimes life just gets in the way. To make matters worse, it’s another article about alcohol – what will people think of me?

Local Loire valley aperitif - Pousses d'epines

This is one of those local Loire valley specialties that’s actually probably made in lots of areas of France. It’s an aperitif called Pousses D’Epines which translates as “shoots of the Blackthorn” – which is what gives it it’s almond-like flavour (although no almonds are used).

We’ve had this to drink at several people’s homes, but our neighbour makes the best. He has a little secret too – not much of a secret, but it’s what sets his apart. It’s also not going to be  a secret much longer!

At around the end of May you pick yourself a few handfuls of the new shoots from the blackthorn bush. The shoots should be about 100mm long. If you hold your hand flat, about that depth will do.

The “secret” is actually not to pick from an existing adult bush but to pick shoots that are just appearing above ground. These are the very freshest and have the most flavour.

So here’s a simple pousses d’epines recipe. You should have all the ingredients ready when you start because you don’t want the shoots to dry out.

You need five bonnes poignées – good handfuls – of pousses d’epines.

You need one kilogramme of ordinary white sugar.

You need 5 litres of wine. You can use white, red or rosé. White seems to be the most common and what we used this time. It’s best with a medium wine, not to sweet or too dry.

You need 1 litre of eau de vie (we made our own for the first time this year, which you can read about here). It doesn’t seem important which flavour.

A bonbonne - in English it's a demijohn

Finally you need a bonbonne – a big plastic or glass receptacle to mix it in. Glass is best. We actually found a ten litre one in our old attic. Very useful.

Having got all your ingredients together it’s just a question of shoving the pousses d’epines into the bonbonne, adding the sugar, white wine and eau de vie then giving the whole thing a good shake to mix it up.

It then goes into a cool, dark room and is given a good shake once a week for just four weeks. That’s it, ready for tasting.

It produces quite a sweet aperitif with a hint of a sharpness which, as I’ve said, you would swear had almonds in it. If it’s a bit too sharp when you first taste it you can leave it a week or two to allow more of the flavour to come out of the leaves.

I have to say our first attempt has come out tasting delicious – and just as good as Monsieur L’Expert next door. Mind you, it is his recipe and it’s even the pousses out of his garden!

OK, enough of the alcohol, next time I promise it will be an update on the progress of the soon to be tastefully appointed gite…

Tags: French vacation, Loire valley breaks, Loire Valley Gite, Loire valley specialities, Loire valley vacation

A Loire valley vacation wouldn’t be the same without at least a little time spent sampling the famous Loire wines. Our gite is situated to the east of the Loire valley but, in typical French fashion, it is classified as the Centre-Loire wine region.

There are several well-known vineyards here – Menetou-Salon, Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé – all well worth investigating, but our nearest are less well known and a few bottles from here will be of great interest to wine fans back home as they are unlikely to come cross them very often. Not only are the vineyards small but only about 10% of production makes it outside France.

The vineyards I’m talking about are Quincy (pronounced kan-see) and Reuilly (roy-yee), both of which are less than half an hour south of us. I won’t go into huge detail because there are Loire valley wine websites packed with great info (links below). I will just mention a couple of things I hope you’ll find interesting.

Quincy wine is made from the Sauvignon Blanc grape. In fact the grape variety is originally from this part of the Centre-Loire region. As they are only allowed to use this one grape variety, Quincy growers only produce white wine. It’s a tiny area by wine-growing standard with even the best known producers having only fifteen or twenty hectare domaines.

Our personal favorite is by Philippe Portier and his small vineyard is a lovely place to go for a Quincy wine tasting. He produces three different white wines, all quite different. His vineyard (domaine) is actually just outside the village of Brinay, rather than Quincy, but the Quincy appellation covers both.

You will usually find someone there during the day but we recommend making an appointment. This is a particularly good idea if your French isn’t very good because they do have a member of staff who speaks English – which is not always the case around here!

Moving over to Reuilly we have red, white and rosé wines. The local name for the rosé is actually gris – which translates literally as grey! Rest assured they’re not – they’re a very light rosé, a lovely summer drink. Much less sweet than the better known Anjou Rosé which is produced at the other end of the Loire valley wine region.

The name actually comes from the grape variety used – Pinot Gris. Reuilly reds are made from Pinot Noir and Reuilly whites from Sauvignon Blanc. Top producer here is Claude Lafond although our favorite is Les Roches from the village of Lazenay.

We continue to taste as many different Quincy and Reuilly wines as we can – purely in the interests of research you understand! I’ll leave the tasting notes to the experts but we think they’re delicious. There’s a lot of variety in the whites – you really do need to taste them for yourself. The reds are on the lighter side though still full of flavour. We have friends who don’t like red wine at all but will drink the red from Les Roches.

At local open markets you can often find a reasonable bottle of either Quincy or Reuilly for around €3.00 a bottle. Top names like those mentioned above will cost you around €7.00 a bottle. Not a lot for very good wine.

Here’s a couple of useful websites:

http://www.loirevalleywine.com
http://www.vins-centre-loire.com

Tags: loire valley wine, quincy wine, reuilly wine

Lovely Loire Valley view - taken from our gite!

If you are coming to France on vacation and you’re looking for Loire valley gites then of course we would like you to pick ours. However, as it’s not quite ready yet, we’ll just give you a brief glimpse of what you will be able to find around here!

If you are looking for a quiet holiday in France, a break from all the hustle and bustle of life, then a Loire valley gite is ideal. Looking for “gites rural” in particular will guarantee you are out in the lovely French countryside.

This is largely a farming area, gently undulating in the main, and punctuated by the amazing French chateaux which have given the Loire valley the alternative title “The Valley of the Kings”. This was where the French aristocracy lived and played when they weren’t in Paris. In the west there is the huge ruin at Angers. More centrally you have the beautiful Chenonceau which sits partly in the river. To the east there is the pretty Valencay, perched high on the hill.

That’s just three of dozens and dozens. There are over 300 in all so we could feature one a week for the next several years and not cover them all!

What we will do is feature some of our favourites. Very subjective I know but we’ll focus on those that are a comfortable hour-or-so drive from our gite. Among these is Chambord. It’s called a chateau now – it has over 400 rooms – but it was actually built by King François I as a hunting lodge!

One of its many features is a massive double helix staircase, all constructed in stone. The idea is that you go up one way and down another. It was built to accommodate the wide dresses that ladies wore at the time – and the double helix meant they wouldn’t have to risk crushing them by having to move them to one side if someone came the other way!

Anyway, more on Loire valley chateaux later. I’m using way too many exclamation marks

Loire valley gites are usually set in quiet villages – of which there are many – or out in the countryside. It’s not an area of theme parks, it’s an area for quiet drives where you hardly see another vehicle or long walks where you will often see roe deer (called chevreuil in French) or red deer (cerf).

Stone Marten. Pic from www.univ-lehavre.fr

If you’re lucky you might sport wild boar (sanglier) but they’re usually very wary of people. They will avoid you if at all possible but are quite ferocious if cornered or if there are piglets around. Best to watch from a distance.

You might also spot Stone Marten (foin). Cute looking but voracious predators. None of the locals keeping ducks, chickens or pheasants want to see one of these around.

There’s plenty of bird life too. In the spring we get great flocks of cranes (grue) passing through on their way north. It can be fifty or a hundred of them in massive flying “V”s. It’s quite a sight. Quite noisy too as they all seem to honk as they fly along. There are many other interesting bird species, like the odd looking Hoopoe, that I’ll go into in other posts.

I’ll end by mentioning a few of the more impressive towns and cities. The Loire valley is one of the least populated areas of France but we do have one or two jewels!

Tour is a big city with it’s own small airport (daily flights to and from London Stanstead). About an hour and fifteen minutes to the west of us it’s got everything you would expect. Lots of shopping, markets (a flower market on Wednesdays) and the old city is full of interesting streets and nice restaurants.

Forty five minutes or so south is Bourges. It’s worth a trip for its cathedral alone. An hour north is Orleans, another lovely place once you get into the centre. Forty five minutes north west is our personal favourite, Blois. The old town looks out over the river Loire and is a lovely mixture of narrow winding streets and large open areas. Park down by the river and walk up the hill to the cathedral or chateau. If you’re considering a good lunch (and why not), do the walk first – it’s quite steep!

A Loire valley gite vacation offers culture, tradition, great food and wine, and a large dose of peace and quiet. This is the heart of France. Life is a bit slower here. It’s a great place to unwind.

Tags: France, French vacation, Loire valley, Loire Valley Gite

Literally translated, Eau de vie is French for “water of life”. In practical terms it’s the name for a clear alcohol distilled in pretty much the same way as brandy. A sniff of the stuff would certainly wake you up but a few glasses and you aren’t going to be very lively the next morning!

Outside of France you usually see it as Poire Williams (or Pear williams) and it’s often seen with a pear inside the bottle. Inside France it’s not just a Loire valley speciality but locally there’s a quite fascinating way of making your own. I’m sure areas other than the Indre have similar traditions but this is the way I know.

Un Alambic - portable still for eau de vie

Eau de vie can be made with pear but around here is more usually made with cherries, plums or peaches. I have heard of it being made with apples but usually apples are used for Calvados. The best (in our opinion) is made with a small yellow plum called a Mirabelle.

Making eau de vie starts with fallen fruit. Commercially it’s probably made with fruit picked off the tree but the rural French are very good at making use of stuff that would otherwise go to waste so all the fruit that falls to the ground is collected and put in a big bucket.

Almost any clean container can be used. We have two Mirabelle trees which were very productive last year so we have a 120 litre plastic barrel (roughly 30 gallons) that we borrowed from the neighbours.

Into the barrel goes all the fruit. A few bits of twig, grass, and the occasional wasp, hornet or bug also go in but nothing is going to survive this process so nobody makes a fuss! For 100 litres of fruit you add ten kilos of sugar. I have to be honest, once again our neighbour was the expert assistant here.

The fruit, although in various states of damage, needs to be properly broken down so that the sugar can start working on it. You can try a big stick but the mixture is very, very thick. The only sensible course of action is to roll your sleeve up and stick your arm in. Lovely!

Then it gets more or less left to its own devices. Every day or so for the first couple of weeks we needed to loosen the sealed lid because a surprising amount of pressure builds up as it starts to ferment. Apart from that you leave it alone…

…until now, the start of March, when the man arrives with his “Alambic”.

Un Alambic is a portable still. At the end of February or beginning of March it shows up in a village about 5 kilometres away called Dun Le Poëlier.

Portable still from the back

It’s an absolutely fascinating thing to see. Stuck on the back of a big trailer it is a magical contraption of steel, wood and copper with pipes going everywhere and steam hissing from here and there. I don’t really know how it works but the mashed fruit and sugar mix goes in one end and out of the other end, about an hour later, comes potent clear alcohol!

As it first appears, a few drops at a time, it is above 80 proof and warm. It is very, very strong – tasting it is an interesting experience but it’s above the legal limit and actually too strong to be very tasty. The man turns a tap and brings it down to a reasonable 50-ish proof. Now it’s delicious.

At the moment it’s about 3.50 Euros a litre, including duty. That’s about a quarter of what you pay in the shops. Sadly we don’t know how much longer this splendid tradition will continue. The French government, in its wisdom (?) has changed the law. Historically the license for making eau de vie could be passed from father to son but not any more.

Fortunately our local distiller is still a relatively young man so we hope he has many more years in him yet!

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Tags: eau de vie, Loire valley specialities

Our French gite is intended to be one of the best Loire valley breaks you can find. Quite a challenge we are setting ourselves then!

We have stayed in quite a few gites in France, from the delightful to the dreadful, and we think we have a good idea of what makes a good one. It isn’t all about being the most luxurious – although comfort is obviously a priority – it’s the whole feeling of the place, from the moment you arrive.

The chateau at Chambord is under an hour away.

If you are looking for a gite that is set in peaceful countryside then that’s precisely what you will find here. We’re at the end of a short lane and there’s nothing beyond us but fields. Behind us is a partly wooded slope, in front of us are open fields which are often full of sunflowers. It’s the kind of gently undulating countryside that the Loire valley is famous for.

The house itself is what’s called a longerre. Built a couple of hundred years ago it started as a simple French farmhouse which was lengthened each time they needed more space. Today it’s got quite long, ending with a big barn and then what is now the pottery.

The gite itself will have three double bedrooms (two of which can be twin or double depending on what people want). There will be two bathrooms, one of which will be en-suite and the other a big family room with bath and shower. There will be a large kitchen with dining area and a nice big separate lounge. There will be a log burning stove in the main lounge and central heating throughout to keep visitors nice and warm in winter. It will retain many of the lovely period features like the beamed ceilings throughout.

Outside there is a large garden. There is a lawned area, some trees and plenty of places for children to explore and play. We won’t be precious about the lawn – whether you play football on it or sleep on it is up to you! There will be a dining area out here too where you can have lazy summer lunches or sit in the evening with a glass of something and watch the sun go down.

We’ll always make sure that there is plenty of information available about things to do in the area, including of course those delightful French restaurants and details of some of the vineyards that also make the Loire valley famous.

In fact we want people’s Loire valley breaks to be as special as we can. If there’s something you can think of that you would like to see or do we will always try to arrange that for you. All you need to do is ask.

Tags: Loire valley breaks, Loire Valley Gite, Loire valley vacation

La Fermette is our home and gite just outside the small village of Anjouin in the lovely French Loire valley countryside. You will also find Xandra Ceramics here – my wife Xandra’s pottery – where she produces lovely individual hand-made earthenware and also offers classes. If you are interested in the pottery, full details are at her dedicated site at Xandra Ceramics.

As for the gite, it’s a work in progress at the moment. We hope to have it open in Spring 2011. We’re just about to re-start work on it after the winter lay-off when it’s too cold for plaster filler to set. I’ll keep you up to date with progress.

If staying in a comfortable French gite in the Loire valley that sleeps six appeals to you, we’re going to give a healthy discount to people who express their interest early on. There’s no commitment to book – we wouldn’t expect you to reserve a French vacation in a place you couldn’t see yet or get prices for – all you have to do is show your interest using the contact form and we’ll let you know when it’s ready and how much you can save.

I’m also going to put lots of useful information here about the local area and tourism in the Loire Valley, Indre and Cher regions so please pop by often.

That’s all for now. If there’s anything you would like to know about our French gite, the pottery courses or just about this part of France, do drop me a line.

Tags: holiday in France, Loire Valley Gite, Pottery courses in France