 to exotic wine travel. I am your host, Matthew Horky. Hi, I'm Sheridan. Welcome back to the show. We just got back from a week in the Loire Valley, something that we've been looking forward to for a long time. Mm-hmm. Loire Valley has a lot to offer to the wine world because of the diversity and so many different movements and trends going on over there. But I think it's also becomes a sack bag for the region because there's just so many things and stories to talk about that. You know, as consumers or even wine livers as well, we have a problem pinpoint, okay, you know, what is the identity of the Loire Valley? So for those of you that don't know, it's the longest river in France is the Loire. Wine, wine production goes back to, can be traced back to the Roman times. And it's probably the third most important wine producing region after Bordeaux and after the Rome in terms of volume. Of course, you have Burgundy as well. And there's all different types of styles being made, sparkling, sweet, dry, still, obviously still different, different types of sweet wines, really a lot of variety being made there, right? Yep. Well, I really wanted to go to Loire because the diversity and understanding what they offer. And on top of that, one of my favorite wine grapes is actually Cabernet Franc. So I've always really enjoyed the wines from Chinon, some more Champigny and Bogole. Muscadé is also a wine that I really enjoy, but production, no, export, export size is so small, you hardly ever see them on the market. Maybe if you see them in your local wine shop, it's that's probably only like one option of Muscadé or two. So that's another reason I really wanted to explore and get to learn more about Muscadé. On the first day of the trip, we actually had a tasting of Crue Muscadé. And what's happening is in Muscadé, to try to bring up the region's reputation, they're dividing the region into Crues, trying to make higher quality wine wines that stay on the lease for longer times, sometimes 30 months, up to 50 months before modeling. Imagine this, one of our one of our favorite wines, the current release was 2010, aged 50 something months on the lease. And I think X seller was like 11 euros. Are you serious? Yes. Another cool thing about the Crue Muscadé is we actually got to walk out at low tide and see where they farmed oysters so we could pick up some oysters to pair with our Muscadé wines. I didn't have boots, it was really muddy and rainy. So I stripped down to just my bare feet and I walked out there. I thought it was an unbelievable experience. A lot of people in the group were completely blown away by Crue Muscadé. Yeah. Well, you really see the difference, differences between the Crues. And just by understanding each Crue, you can actually have a better understanding of what kind of Muscadé you like. And it's amazing that one great can achieve so many different sort of expressions in the same region. Yeah. And the problem, I thought the wines were absolutely beautiful, stunning. You know, when you have cheap Muscadé people, you're drinking almost like battery acid, like acid water. But when you step up and drink some of these Crue Muscadés, I'll put a link in the description box and a map as well. You're drinking wines that can age exceptionally well. We even did a dinner with Crue Muscadé going back to 1974. And I think that you could confuse a lot of those wines maybe with a chablis. Yeah, I would say sometimes it's more rizzling like this well. Some of the wines that we tasted, imagine they've been aged on the lease for like 50 months. So it really gives you the roundness with high acidity. So those wines on release, they already taste very good. But at the same time, most of them, they don't go through any oak influence. So you're just getting just such great purity of fruit. Those wines, when you talk about it, we tasted wines from the 1970s and 1980s, right? It's amazing how youthful they are, literally almost at times like zero tertiary note at all. Like literally, like 1979 tastes fresh as a day. So I'm gonna put a link to the Crues up there. You know, we'll think about France, Muscadé and France the labeling. The Crues can be confusing. But I'm gonna tell you this, a lot of those Crues are available around the world in the under 20 US dollar range. And I think they just offer tremendous value. And they're not only shellfish wines, you can drink them with a lot of different things, don't you think? Yes, we need to get together and raise the demand on Muscadé so we can all benefit from it. One style of wine and one Appalachian that completely blew me away was Sauvignon. So we actually, we visited the famous Nicolas Joli, owner of the Coulee des Savants. I think my French is really bad. Vineyard and Appalachian, these are wines that I've always wanted to taste. We got to actually visit the estate, taste through many vintages of those wines and it takes many different Sauvignon wines. And I was excited the whole time. So excited, didn't even take notes. Why do you like those wines? Well, it's Chenin Blanc. It's some of the most versatile grapes. You know, you can get ripe, beautiful fruit, sometimes even tropical. And then it's also susceptible to protritus. And then some of the grapes actually, like some of Nicolas Joli's wine, he has like maybe five to 10% of protritus. That adds this beautiful honey and ginger note to it. So imagine you have this full body, but you have your quintessential Chenin Blanc acidity. So to me, those wines are near perfect wine or at least the backbone of the wine is just perfect for you to craft anything. Yeah, for the, for in the past, I had not drank a lot of Sauvignon wine before, but I will in the future. 100% Chenin Blanc. Usually a lot of them modern are barrel aged, barrel fermented. And like you said, it's ripe. It's, you have all the ripe tropical fruit flavors from like a warmer, kind of a warmer weather climate, but you also have this acidity from a cool weather climate, tons of minerals. I mean, they're not just really good, fantastic, great white wines. Let's just put it this way. I like Chenin Blanc. I've ordered Chenin Blanc at restaurants and shops, but I've never ordered a single bottle of Sauvignon ever in my life. But right now, if I ever see Sauvignon on, on the wine menu, I probably will put it as my top choice for the night. And I think you can get a lot of these wines. There's a small appellation, small quantity, super high quality wines, but I think a lot of times you can get these under 50 us dollars. I know which is a lot for wine for a fine French boy. I think it's tremendous value. We did an evening and a dinner with wines and producers from similar Champagne, a region that Srinu really likes. You want to talk about it? That was my dream dinner early. Actually, you know, out of the three areas, you know, in Bogwai, I've always kind of preferred Bogwai a little bit more because it's fruitier, it's much more accessible, but after the trip and getting to taste all those wines side by side, I definitely like some more Champagne, maybe a little bit better because, well, what is it known for? Some more Champagne is usually known for, it's more floral, uplifting note. And I find that most of the wines retain that quality. And even when those wines are put in a barrel. So first of all, they taste really good when it's just done fresh, 2017, you know, in steel tank, it tastes really beautiful. But when you put those wines in a barrel, it still really retains this floral grapefruit note on the nose. And it's got nice, this graphite, soft, small green tannin on the finish. That's why I love it. And those wines are really full friendly wines. Another great thing is some more fresh, some more Champagnes, you can find a lot of times under $20 US dollar under $15 US dollar. So I think they make fantastic everyday drinking rinse. So if you are someone who likes kind of the flavors of Bordeaux, you know, more graphite, earthy, but with cherry, black fruit as well, all balanced out, I think some more Champagne is a very good choice with more of a crisp acidity, liveliness that will go well with your food and also for daily consumption. What was your favorite part of the trip, the week? No, all the dinners. But a lot of learning opportunities as well. Well, I enjoy the dinners, especially the more Champagnes dinner the most. But I think the best learning experience for me was the 10 cruise muscadé tasting. We had a booth of each crew and each crew had maybe like two, three examples of each area. So you really get to know the different areas really well and different expressions. For me, I had two favorite experiences. One was the crew muscadé day, the whole day, just tasting all the crew muscadé side by side and then walking into the ocean barefoot kind of connecting with the sea, then actually eating the oysters with the crew muscadé. It kind of brought everything in together. And the second, second thing for me is I've wanted to try Nicholas Jolie's wines for a long time and it was awesome. The first time I actually had them was we're there at the estate seeing the beautiful vineyard and you got to taste three vintages of his iconic wine. Cooley day is around 2007, 2013, 2017. Everyone went crazy over the 2007. We just covered a small slice of the Loire in a week. You guys check out some of these wines. There's very, there's all different types of styles offering great value for money. So if you liked this video, please subscribe to our YouTube channel, Exotic Wine Travel. We'll see you at the next episode.