Domaine du Clos Naudin
Standing partway up the Rue de la Croix Buisée, the mid-morning sun was already beating down with what seemed like a Saharan intensity. It was late July, and the Loire Valley was in the midst of a spell of warm and sunny weather. Of course there was always the odd wisp of cool cloud, especially in the morning, and the occasional shower of rain – after all this is the Loire Valley, not Death Valley – but on the whole it was warm and dry. It seemed especially so to me, used to the sub-Arctic summer temperatures regularly encountered at home in Scotland.
I kicked my heels outside the cellars of Domaine du Clos Naudin, opposite the Foreau residence (pictured), as I waited for Philippe Foreau and my other companions to appear. I was here to taste through some of Philippe’s wines, recent releases and hopefully a few older ones too, and joining me would be a couple of the appellation’s leading vignerons, Vincent Carême and Michel Autran, as well as Yaïr Tabor of Le Rouge & Le Blanc, a popular French language periodical, and one of his colleagues. Yaïr and his colleague were next to arrive; emerging from their car they each began to don a woolly sweaters followed by a warm, fleecy jacket. I looked on with amusement as I felt the warmth of the sun’s rays on the back of my neck. The cool of the cellars was exactly where I wanted to be, to get out of this sweltering heat, and I felt no need to wrap myself up against the cold air.
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