Seattle Press on Line - Wine Travels in the Loire

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Wine Travels in the Loire

By Stephen Herold

Nov 21, 2001 -- In my frequent travels I always try to visit bookstores to make lists of interesting books I might have overlooked and to buy neglected bargains. Increasingly I am finding books that I can't wait to order at wholesale and read at home, and so I please another bookseller and buy them for immediate, greedy consumption. My most recent gem is A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire by Jacqueline Friedrich, and I most heartily recommend it to anyone who loves food, wine, France or paradise on earth.

Despite my love of good wine I approach wine books with fear and trembling, knowing how often they are full of useful but deadly dull facts, reading like a phone book at best. The great Vouvrays are my personal favorite and, whatever your taste, certainly one of the greatest wines ever made. It was with mixed feelings that I had to examine a book about them and their homeland that I recently saw in Westport, Connecticut, home of the too-rich and snobby. After returning twice to read more of it I knew I had to have it - NOW! And, on returning to my in-laws home, I retired into the most satisfying reading I have had since discovering Lahiri.

This is no mere wine book, but a celebration of life and fine living written in luscious prose as satisfying as the food and wine she describes. It is the winner of the Veuve Clicquot Wine Book of the Year Award, the Julia Child Award and the James Beard Award. It deserves them and more. Certainly I knew she would be a competent writer, having written articles for Wine Spectator, Travel & Leisure and The New York Times, but nothing prepared me for the winning charm and passion she shows for the Loire. We all might dream of visiting wine areas to see and taste for ourselves, and wish for exquisite tastings in ancient cellars, but Friedrich, with her charm and sprightly ways, opened doors and hearts of reserved Frenchmen that we might knock on without result. Robert Denis shared his incomparable '67 vende tardive chenin and, with tears in his eyes, described how it brought back memories of magical summer days with its bouquet. Michael Humeau took her along the lower Loire to help empty his eel traps, and then home to a lunch of melon, sandre a la creme, salad, berries and bootleg cognac. My envy knows no bounds.

Traveling the Loire from its mouth to its source she writes of the regions, their wine, their food, where to eat and stay, history, gastronomy and the warm passions of the people. Following an enlightening visit in 1989 she spent two years researching this book, and then permanently moved to Touraine as proof of her understanding of this magical place. Rabelais, a native of Chinon, told us the same four centuries ago, but it is too easy to dismiss his passion as mere classical literature and pride of a native son. As Friedrich tells us;

There is another Loire, less grand, less imposing, wilder and more endearing. This is the Loire of back roads, of small Romanesque churches with great frescos and chatty guardians; the Loire of wizened old women who still lead their goats to pasture and milk them by hand; the Loire of quiet villages, of shady river bends, of farms and vineyards, and now and then a minor castle in the distance, on a hill beyond a line of trees.

I'm saving for my ticket now.

As a footnote I quite by chance found a case of the heavenly '97 Champalou trie de vendange Vouvray at local wine shop I respect. Expensive, but impossible to pass by after this book. These are wines so long-lived that even great reds cannot match either their long life or continued improvement in the bottle. At 50 years they are just hitting their stride, and after a century still wonderful beyond words. I can't pull a cork for another 7 years, and won't taste their true worth for another 50. If you want to join me in paradise come by in 2061 and we'll pull the last cork together.

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